Harry Potter and the Unexpected Changes
by LordAnarchy666
Summary: HP/DG. Follow Harry as he tries to broaden his horizons beyond Dumbledore's control. A new look on GoF. slight!Dumblebashing. Ron!bashing elemental magic, nonstandard!animagus forms. Sirius is free! independant!powerful!Harry 99.9% complete
1. Hermione's Secret

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

* * *

"Here we come!" Hermione whispered.

She and Harry got to their feet. Buckbeak raised his head. They saw Lupin, Ron, and Pettigrew clambering awkwardly out of the hole in the roots. Then came Hermione… then the unconscious Snape, drifting weirdly upward. Next came Harry and Black. They all began to walk toward the castle.

Harry's heart was starting to beat very fast. He glanced up at the sky. Any moment now, that cloud was going to move aside and show the moon…

"Harry," Hermione muttered as though she knew exactly what he was thinking, "we've got to stay put. We mustn't be seen. There's nothing we can do…"

"So we're just going to let Pettigrew escape all over again…" said Harry quietly.

"How do you expect to find a rat in the dark?" snapped Hermione. "There's nothing we can do! We came back to help Sirius; we're not supposed to be doing anything else!"

"I have an idea, what is the summoning spell? Quick!"

The moon slid out from behind its cloud. They saw the tiny figures across the grounds stop. Then they saw movement —

"The incantation is Accio, but I'm not sure it works on humans or animals… There goes Lupin," Hermione whispered. "He's transforming."

"Accio Peter Pettigrew!" Harry yelled. About 10 seconds later a rat flew into his hands. Harry used the stunning spell on him. He has only read about the spell before and this was the first time he has ever used it, and he quickly realized how useful it could be, it is a fairly standard spell after all. Harry quickly picked up the rat and stuffed him into his pocket.

Hermione looked like she wanted to lecture him for altering the timeline but he put a stop to it quickly. He wasn't about to let his parents true betrayer just go, and leave his godfather potentially on the run any longer than he can help it.

"Hermione!" said Harry suddenly. "We've got to move!"

"We mustn't, I keep telling you —"

"Not to interfere! Lupin's going to run into the forest, right at us!"

Hermione gasped.

"Quick!" she moaned, dashing to untie Buckbeak. "Quick! Where are we going to go? Where are we going to hide? The Dementors will be coming any moment —"

"Back to Hagrid's!" Harry said. "It's empty now — come on!"

* * *

"Right, it's nearly time," said Hermione tensely, looking at her watch. "We've got about forty-five minutes until Dumbledore locks the door to the hospital wing. We've got to rescue Sirius and get back into the ward before anybody realizes we're missing…"

They waited, watching the moving clouds reflected in the lake, while the bush next to them whispered in the breeze. Buckbeak, bored, was ferreting for worms again.

"Do you reckon he's up there yet?" said Harry, checking his watch. He looked up at the castle and began counting the windows to the right of the West Tower.

"Look!" Hermione whispered. "Who's that? Someone's coming back out of the castle!"

Harry stared through the darkness. The man was hurrying across the grounds, toward one of the entrances. Something shiny glinted in his belt.

"Macnair!" said Harry. "The executioner! He's gone to get the Dementors! This is it, Hermione —"

Hermione put her hands on Buckbeak's back and Harry gave her a leg up. Then he placed his foot on one of the lower branches of the bush and climbed up in front of her. He pulled Buckbeak's rope back over his neck and tied it to the other side of his collar like reins.

"Ready?" he whispered to Hermione. "You'd better hold on to me —"

He nudged Buckbeak's sides with his heels.

Buckbeak soared straight into the dark air. Harry gripped his flanks with his knees, feeling the great wings rising powerfully beneath them. Hermione was holding Harry very tight around the waist; he could hear her muttering, "Oh, no — I don't like this oh, I really don't like this —"

Harry urged Buckbeak forward. They were gliding quietly toward the upper floors of the castle… Harry pulled hard on the left-hand side of the rope, and Buckbeak turned. Harry was trying to count the windows flashing past —

"Whoa!" he said, pulling backward as hard as he could.

Buckbeak slowed down and they found themselves at a stop, unless you counted the fact that they kept rising up and down several feet as the Hippogriff beat his wings to remain airborne.

"He's there!" Harry said, spotting Sirius as they rose up beside the window. He reached out, and as Buckbeak's wings fell, was able to tap sharply on the glass.

Black looked up. Harry saw his jaw drop.

He leapt from his chair, hurried to the window and tried to open it, but it was locked.

"Stand back!" Hermione called to him, and she took out her wand, still gripping the back of Harry's robes with her left hand.

"Alohomora!"

The window sprang open.

"How — how —?" said Black weakly, staring at the Hippogriff.

"Get on — there's not much time," said Harry, gripping Buckbeak firmly on either side of his sleek neck to hold him steady. "You've got to get out of here — the Dementors are coming — Macnair's gone to get them."

Black placed a hand on either side of the window frame and heaved his head and shoulders out of it. It was very lucky he was so thin. In seconds, he had managed to fling one leg over Buckbeak's back and pull himself onto the Hippogriff behind Hermione.

"Okay, Buckbeak, up!" said Harry, shaking the rope. "Up to the tower — come on."

The Hippogriff gave one sweep of its mighty wings and they were soaring upward again, high as the top of the West Tower. Buckbeak landed with a clatter on the battlements, and Harry and Hermione slid off him at once.

"Sirius, you'd better go, quick," Harry panted. "They'll reach Flitwick's office any moment, they'll find out you're gone."

Buckbeak pawed the ground, tossing his sharp head.

"What happened to the other boy? Ron?" croaked Sirius.

"He's going to be okay. He's still out of it, but Madam Pomfrey says she'll be able to make him better. Quick — go —"

But Black was still staring down at Harry.

"How can I ever thank —"

"There will be plenty of time later! I caught Pettigrew so hopefully we can get your name cleared soon, but first you got to get out of here!"

Sirius had a grin on his face at the thought of being free and was about to say something, but they looked impatient.

"GO!" Harry and Hermione shouted together.

Black wheeled Buckbeak around, facing the open sky.

"We'll see each other again," he said. "You are — truly your father's son, Harry…"

He squeezed Buckbeak's sides with his heels. Harry and Hermione jumped back as the enormous wings rose once more… The Hippogriff took off into the air… He and his rider became smaller and smaller as Harry gazed after them… then a cloud drifted across the moon… They were gone.

"I might just have a real home this summer…" Harry thought to himself. Things were looking up

* * *

Authors Note

Most of this chapter I took out right out of PoA- Hermiones Secret.


	2. Owl Post

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

"… only hope Dumbledore's not going to make difficulties," Snape was saying. "The Kiss will be performed immediately?"

"As soon as Macnair returns with the Dementors. This whole Black affair has been highly embarrassing. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to informing the Daily Prophet that we've got him at last… I daresay they'll want to interview you, Snape… and once young Harry's back in his right mind, I expect he'll want to tell the Prophet exactly how you saved him…"

Harry clenched his teeth. He caught a glimpse of Snape's smirk as he and Fudge passed Harry and Hermione's hiding place. Their footsteps died away. Harry and Hermione waited a few moments to make sure they'd really gone, then started to run in the opposite direction. Down one staircase, then another, along a new corridor — then they heard a cackling ahead.

"Peeves!" Harry muttered, grabbing Hermione's wrist. "In here!"

They tore into a deserted classroom to their left just in time. Peeves seemed to be bouncing along the corridor in boisterous good spirits, laughing his head off.

"Oh, he's horrible," whispered Hermione, her ear to the door. "I bet he's all excited because the Dementors are going to finish off Sirius…" She checked her watch.

"Three minutes, Harry!"

They waited until Peeves's gloating voice had faded into the distance, then slid back out of the room and broke into a run again.

"Hermione — what'll happen — if we don't get back inside before Dumbledore locks the door?" Harry panted.

"I don't want to think about it!" Hermione moaned, checking her watch again. "One minute!"

They had reached the end of the corridor with the hospital wing entrance. "Okay — I can hear Dumbledore," said Hermione tensely. "Come on, Harry!"

They crept along the corridor. The door opened. Dumbledore's back appeared.

"I am going to lock you in," they heard him saying. "it is five minutes to midnight. Miss Granger, three turns should do it. Good luck."

Dumbledore backed out of the room, closed the door, and took out his wand to magically lock it. Panicking, Harry and Hermione ran forward. Dumbledore looked up, and a wide smile appeared under the long silver mustache. "Well?" he said quietly.

"We did it!" said Harry breathlessly. "Sirius has gone, on Buckbeak…"

Dumbledore beamed at them.

"Well done. I think —" He listened intently for any sound within the hospital wing. "Yes, I think you've gone too — get inside — I'll lock you in —"

"Wait! I also captured Pettigrew!" Harry exclaimed. "We can clear Sirius."

Dumbledore looked at him incredulously., while stroking his beard at the sudden revelation. "This is unexpected, but good news indeed. Getting a trial is going to be tricky but with new evidence I should be able to get one soon I should hope. Where is he may I ask?"

"Here, he is in my pocket." He took him out and handed him over after stupefying him again. Dumbledore took him and conjured a cage out of thin air and placed the rat in it, and cast some spells on it the he said were an animagus suppressing ward, imperturbable ward, and a locking charm of course.

"Here we go, there is no way he can escape now and I will hold onto him in my office until we get a trial, we wouldn't want Fudge getting his hands on him…" Dumbledore said with a slight tone of distaste.

I could see the logic in this. "It wouldn't be good if Lucius Malfoy caught wind that we had him, and we all know what kind of person Malfoy is… Anyways we better get back inside before we are missed."

Harry and Hermione slipped back inside the dormitory. It was empty except for Ron, who was still lying motionless in the end bed. As the lock clicked behind them, Harry and Hermione crept back to their own beds, Hermione tucking the Time-Turner back under her robes. A moment later, Madam Pomfrey came striding back out of her office.

"Did I hear the headmaster leaving? Am I allowed to look after my patients now?"

She was in a very bad mood. Harry and Hermione thought it best to accept their chocolate quietly.

Madam Pomfrey stood over them, making sure they ate it. But Harry could hardly swallow. He and Hermione were waiting, listening, their nerves jangling… And then, as they both took a fourth piece of chocolate from Madam Pomfrey, they heard a distant roar of fury echoing from somewhere above them…

"What was that?" said Madam Pomfrey in alarm.

Now they could hear angry voices, growing louder and louder. Madam Pomfrey was staring at the door.

"Really — they'll wake everybody up! What do they think they're doing?"

Harry was trying to hear what the voices were saying. They were drawing nearer —

"He must have Disapparated, Severus.

We should have left somebody in the room with him. When this gets out —"

"HE DIDN'T DISAPPARATE!" Snape roared, now very close at hand. "YOU CAN'T APPARATE OR DISAPPARATE INSIDE THIS CASTLE! THIS — HAS — SOMETHING — TO — DO — WITH — POTTER!"

"Severus — be reasonable — Harry has been locked up —"

BAM.

The door of the hospital wing burst open.

Fudge, Snape, and Dumbledore came striding into the ward. Dumbledore alone looked calm. Indeed, he looked as though he was quite enjoying himself. The people in the room all laughed at this; Dumbledore indeed has his own style.

Fudge appeared angry. But Snape was beside himself.

"OUT WITH IT, POTTER!" he bellowed. "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

"Professor Snape!" shrieked Madam Pomfrey. "Control yourself!"

"See here, Snape, be reasonable," said Fudge. "This door's been locked, we just saw —"

"THEY HELPED HIM ESCAPE, I KNOW IT!" Snape howled, pointing at Harry and Hermione. His face was twisted; spit was flying from his mouth.

"Calm down, man!" Fudge barked. "You're talking nonsense!"

"YOU DON'T KNOW POTTER!" shrieked Snape. "HE DID IT, I KNOW HE DID IT —"

"That will do, Severus," said Dumbledore quietly. "Think about what you are saying. This door has been locked since I left the ward ten minutes ago. Madam Pomfrey, have these students left their beds?"

"Of course not!" said Madam Pomfrey, bristling. "I would have heard them!"

"Well, there you have it, Severus," said Dumbledore calmly. "Unless you are suggesting that Harry and Hermione are able to be in two places at once, I'm afraid I don't see any point in troubling them further."

Snape stood there, seething, staring from Fudge, who looked thoroughly shocked at his behavior, to Dumbledore, whose eyes were twinkling behind his glasses. Snape whirled about, robes swishing behind him, and stormed out of the ward.

"Fellow seems quite unbalanced," said Fudge, staring after him. "I'd watch out for him if I were you, Dumbledore."

"Oh, he's not unbalanced," said Dumbledore quietly. "He's just suffered a severe disappointment."

"He's not the only one!" puffed Fudge. "The Daily Prophet's going to have a field day! We had Black cornered and he slipped through our fingers yet again! All it needs now is for the story of that Hippogriff's escape to get out, and I'll be a laughingstock! Well… I'd better go and notify the Ministry…"

"Hold that thought for a second Cornelius. Some new evidence has surfaced tonight…. It appears to me that a great injustice has been done 12 years ago, and Sirius Black is in fact innocent." Dumbledore calmly stated.

"What are you trying to say? That man is a murderer!" He said incredulously.

"Peter Pettigrew is alive, he was on the grounds tonight, and it appears that he framed young Sirius all those years ago and we in fact put the wrong man in Azkaban, and without a trial no less…" He seemed to be lost in his thoughts for a second.

"I have now come to believe that the Potter's made Peter their secret keeper, and not Sirius as he would be the obvious choice, no one would think Peter would join Voldemort." Fudge flinched at the name. He was unsure what was happening but he was thinking about the future of his office if what Dumbledore said was true.

"But what about all those Muggles killed!"

"They were all killed by Peter. It is well known that the largest part of Peter that was found was his finger, and that is because he cut it off himself. The missing link that was unknown all those years ago is that he is an illegal animagus, a rat to be precise, and that is how he escaped, he shifted into his form after yelling out "Sirius, how could you…", it was the perfect set up and we all bought it without a second thought."

"This is all well and good, how is the public going to react? They are not going to like it" Fudge fidgeted, racking his braining thinking of a way to not destroy his career.

"Tell them the truth. If I am right an innocent man has spent 12 years in Azkaban while the real traitor was on the loose. You must set up a trial as quick as possible. I have the means to contact Sirius." He said while motioning at Fawkes. "And you will keep Lucius out of this if you know what's good for you." He said in a rare, but brief moment of malice.

"I will bring both him and Peter to the trial myself, to ensure his safety." Fudge looked like he wanted to protest but quickly agreed.

"The fact that Black could be innocent will be even bigger news than if he would guilty and captured! What a mess this is… going to be hard to clean up…" Fudge was told to himself more than Dumbledore.

"And the Dementors?" said Dumbledore. "They'll be removed from the school, I trust?"

"Oh yes, they'll have to go," said Fudge, running his fingers distractedly through his hair. "Never dreamed they'd attempt to administer the Kiss on an innocent boy… Completely out of control… no, I'll have them packed off back to Azkaban tonight… Perhaps we should think about dragons at the school entrance…"

"Hagrid would like that," said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry and Hermione.

As he and Fudge left the dormitory, Madam Pomfrey hurried to the door and locked it again. Muttering angrily to herself, she headed back to her office.

There was a low moan from the other end of the ward. Ron had woken up. They could see him sitting up, rubbing his head, looking around.

"What — what happened?" he groaned. "Harry? Why are we in here? Where's Sirius? Where's Lupin? What's going on?"

Harry and Hermione looked at each other.

"You explain," said Harry, helping himself to some more chocolate.

* * *

Lupin's office door was open. He had already packed most of his things. The Grindylow's empty tank stood next to his battered old suitcase, which was open and nearly full. Lupin was bending over something on his desk and looked up only when Harry knocked on the door.

"I saw you coming," said Lupin, smiling. He pointed to the parchment he had been poring over. It was the Marauder's Map.

"I just saw Hagrid," said Harry. "And he said you'd resigned. It's not true, is it?"

"I'm afraid it is," said Lupin. He started opening his desk drawers and taking out the contents.

"Why?" said Harry. "The Ministry of Magic don't think you were helping Sirius, do they?. And besides, I recaptured Pettigrew last night and he is currently in the Headmasters office. I think he is going to get a new trial for Sirius!"

Lupin crossed to the door and closed it behind Harry.

"That is good news. No. Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge that I was trying to save your lives." He sighed. "That was the final straw for Severus. I think the loss of the Order of Merlin hit him hard. So he — er — accidentally let slip that I am a werewolf this morning at breakfast."

"You're not leaving just because of that!" said Harry.

Lupin smiled wryly.

"This time tomorrow, the owls will start arriving from parents… They will not want a werewolf teaching their children, Harry. And after last night, I see their point. I could have bitten any of you… That must never happen again."

"You're the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've ever had!" said Harry. "Don't go!"

Lupin shook his head and didn't speak. He carried on emptying his drawers. Then, while Harry was trying to think of a good argument to make him stay, Lupin said, "From what the headmaster told me this morning, you saved a lot of lives last night, Harry. If I'm proud of anything I've done this year, it's how much you've learned… Tell me about your Patronus."

"How d'you know about that?" said Harry, distracted.

"What else could have driven the Dementors back?"

Harry told Lupin what had happened. When he'd finished, Lupin was smiling again.

"Yes, your father was always a stag when he transformed," he said. "You guessed right… that's why we called him Prongs."

Lupin threw his last few books into his case, closed the desk drawers, and turned to look at Harry.

"Here — I brought this from the Shrieking Shack last night," he said, handing Harry back the Invisibility Cloak. "And…" He hesitated, then held out the Marauder's Map too. "I am no longer your teacher, so I don't feel guilty about giving you back this as well. It's no use to me, and I daresay you, Ron, and Hermione will find uses for it."

Harry took the map and grinned.

"You told me Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs would've wanted to lure me out of school… you said they'd have thought it was funny."

"And so we would have," said Lupin, now reaching down to close his case. "I have no hesitation in saying that James would have been highly disappointed if his son had never found any of the secret passages out of the castle."

There was a knock on the door. Harry hastily stuffed the Marauder's Map and the Invisibility Cloak into his pocket.

It was Professor Dumbledore. He didn't look surprised to see Harry there.

"Your carriage is at the gates, Remus," he said.

"Thank You, Headmaster."

Lupin picked up his old suitcase and the empty Grindylow tank.

"Well — good-bye, Harry," he said, smiling. "It has been a real pleasure teaching you. I feel sure we'll meet again sometime soon, if what you say about Wormtail is true. Headmaster, there is no need to see me to the gates, I can manage…"

Harry had the impression that Lupin wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

"Good-bye, then, Remus," said Dumbledore soberly.

* * *

The next few weeks went by slowly as Dumbledore was in the process of getting Sirius a new trial in the light of new evidence. Eventually he got the trial set for the last week before the semester ended. It took a lot of convincing because a lot of the Wizengamot was all for giving Sirius the kiss upon sight. After explaining the new evidence a lot of the members looked appalled at the possibility that they sent an innocent to that hellhole of a prison for 12 years. Others just wanted to get it over with and get back to their lives, so they relented anyways.

Harry was very excited, yet fearful, during the days before the trial. He kept asking himself what could go wrong, and he didn't like some of the answers. His friends were supportive, but he didn't think they could exactly grasp what would happen if Sirius was to be cleared. His whole life would change and he would never have to go back to the Dursley's again. Needless to say he was giddy with anticipation, slowly counting down the days.


	3. Trial

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

The day of the trial was finally upon him. Harry work up at 5 AM, but the trial wasn't until 9. He paced around the common room until it was time for breakfast, then he went up to Dumbledore's office to get a portkey to the ministry. He was a prime witness but chances were he wouldn't be called.

When they got up to the office, he was greeted by Dumbledore, eyes twinkling like always. He then was greeted by Sirius, and he threw him into a hug.

"This is the big day huh." Harry said nervously. One would think that he was the one on trial, being how nervous he was.

"Don't worry pup, if everything works out like it should, I'll be a free man at the end of today, and we can be a family like your dad wanted."

Harry smiled at the mention of his dad. He then noticed for the first time two people in maroon robes. Dumbledore noticed this and introduced them.

"Ah, this is Nymphadora Tonks" he said indicating the young witch. "And this is Kingsley Shacklebolt" motioning to the tall intimidating wizard. "They are Aurors, from the Division of Magical Law Enforcement." He said answering the unasked question. "Incidentally they are also members of the Order of the Phoenix, but that is a conversation for another day…"

Harry went to shake hands with both, he noticed that the witch was rather attractive, pretty young too, and had pink hair.

"Wotcher Harry" she greeted him. "Call me Tonks, I hate my first name." She pouted.

Kingsley didn't say anything, just gave him a nod. Ron just stood back and watched, feeling slightly out of place.

"Everyone ready? Good. Everyone just grab onto this book, I'll make it into a portkey." Everyone did and Harry felt a jerk and all of a sudden landed in a heap in the Ministry Atrium. That was his first portkey experience, and with any luck it would be his last. He looked around and was mildly impressed with the atrium. They walked quickly walked past a security wizard who took one look at Dumbledore and then went back to his newspaper. They went into a lift and they rode it down until a voice announced "Department of Mysteries, and Courtrooms".

They made it into the courtroom and the first thing he noticed was that it looked like the full Wizengamot was there, presumably because it was the biggest case in years. Sirius made his own way over to the chair in the middle of the room. Shackles popped out of the arms and clamped him down. He didn't indicate any signs of discomfort, even under the glares of the members of the court, the majority of them who still think he is guilty until proven innocent.

The judged banged her gavel to bring order to the court. "Settle down everyone. We are here today to give trial to Sirius Orion Black in the light of new evidence to that fateful night 12 years ago. I assume everyone is familiar with the story as we currently know it. We will be using Veritaserum to ensure everything that is said is the truth."

"First I would like the Defense to bring forth the new evidence." Amelia Bones said.

Dumbledore produced the cage holding a very _very_ scared Wormtail. He walked up in front of the Aurors and took out the rat. "This is Peter Pettigrew. He is an illegal animagus." This statement brought a lot of murmurs from the members. The court scribe was scribbling frantically. He then drew his wand and cast a spell that forces you out of your animagus form. Slowly Pettigrew emerged and immediately the Aurors sprang into action, conjured a nasty iron chair, and secured him in.

"As you can see Peter Pettigrew is not as dead as we have all thought for the past 12 years." Dumbledore said calmly with a twinkle in his eyes. "The story we have all been led to believe is wrong. The Potters never made Sirius Black their secret keeper. For those of you unfamiliar the Fidelus charm, essentially no one can get into the house without knowing the secret, and only the secret keeper can give out the secret. Sirius was the obvious choice, so they made Peter it instead. He was the always overlooked one at school, and no one would think he was it. It was a good plan, but they didn't think he was going to become a traitor. Peter then gave their location up to Voldemort." He paused for effect. "After the events, a distraught Sirius went looking for Peter, and he ended up getting framed. He encountered him on the street, and Peter blew up the street up, along with 12 muggles. He cut his own finger off, transformed into his rat form, and escaped down the sewer. You can clearly see that Peter is missing his finger, the one he cut off himself. He has been living unknown to the rest of the world as a family pet, and recently was found alive. I ask that we use the Veritaserum now"

DMLE Director Bones nodded. "Very well, we will hear from Mr. Black first."

An Auror walked up and poured a few drops onto Sirius' tongue.

"Please state your name"

"Sirius Orion Black" he said in a monotone voice.

"Were you the Potters secret keeper?"

"No." Madam bones immediately had to bang her gavel to maintain order.

"Who was it?"

"Peter Pettigrew. I would have been the obvious choice."

"Did you ever serve "The Dark Lord?"

"No." The talking got pretty loud from the audience but quickly died down after Amelia banged her gavel again.

"Did you betray the Potters?"

"Never. I would never betray James and Lily, they were my family!" More talking from the crowd, and another bang of the gavel.

"Did you kill those 12 muggles on the day you went after Peter?"

"I did not." Sirius was crying heavily by this point, at the mention of his best mate.

Amelia Bones called out "That is sufficient, lets hear what Mr. Pettigrew has to say for himself."

The serum was administered again.

"Name?"

"Peter Amadeus Pettigrew"

"Were you the Potters secret keeper?"

"Yes. No one would suspect me"

"Did you betray the Potters secret to "The Dark Lord."

"Ye-ye-yes" he whimpered.

"Did you serve "The Dark Lord"?"

"Ye-ye-yes" he started crying by this point.

"Did you take the Dark Mark?"

"Ye-ye-yes" The Auror walked over and rolled up his left sleeve, and there for everyone to witness was the Dark Mark. It was just the scar left over, but almost no one noticed that it was slightly darker then what it should be. Harry did however notice it. He didn't know what the mark should look like though so he looked at Dumbledore for a reaction. He looked disconcerted, he noticed the slightly darker Dark Mark also.

Amelia stood up this time and announces "We will now deliberate and convene back here in 1 hour with the verdict."

Harry looked at Sirius and gave him the thumbs up, and Sirius grinned back.

An hour late all 100 plus members of the Wizengamot came back into the room.

Director Bones stood up to announce the verdict.

"All those in favor of dropping all charges against Sirius Orion Black." Nearly every hand went up in the group.

"All opposed?" No one raised their hand, but some people didn't vote, probably to save face.

Harry cheered really loud, and then it was time for Wormtail's verdict.

"Crimes of Peter Pettigrew are as follows; Member of a known terrorist organization. Murder of at least 12 muggles…" She listed a few more, but Harry was looking at Wormtail. He has never seen a sight so pitiful, he was cowering, shaking, crying, he knew he was done for.

"For crimes against humanity, we sentence Peter Pettigrew to the Dementor's kiss. We all thought that he was dead for the past 12 years, and this is no more than what he deserves. It will be administered once this court is adjourned."

"To Sirius Orion Black we compensate you for your wrongful imprisonment, 12 million galleons. We realize that monetary compensation is not enough, but it is the least we can do. We also offer Ministry Counciling Services to help you reintegrate back into society. You are hereby cleared of all charges, and are free to go. You have all of our apologies. This court is adjourned."

Harry quickly jumped up and ran over to Sirius and embraced him. They followed Dumbledore out to the atrium while being pelted by reporters. "You did it Padfoot! You're free!"

Sirius being the type of person he is, had to say something. "I am a free man now, in more than one way! I am single ladies, so please form a line…" and with that they port keyed back to the headmasters office.

They sat down and Dumbledore asked "So what are you planning on doing now?"

"Well…


	4. Summer Plans

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

"Well, I plan on adopting Harry and he is going to live with me."

"I'm not sure that's a great idea Sirius, there are strong protective wards on Privet Drive that keep Harry and his relatives safe from the outside world…" Dumbledore sighed. He needs to keep Harry protected. "There are still followers of Voldemort out there who would love nothing less than to get revenge for their fallen master."

"I have heard about these so called Blood Wards that are set up on the house. I know the Black library personally has a few books, but I've never read them of course. They keep anyone with ill intent out, they are based on Harry's emotions, and because of that they are really weak."

"Yes that may be true, but I must insist…" Dumbledore insisted. "Surely his relatives aren't that bad."

"I watched them during the summer. While the wards may protect Harry from outside harm, it does nothing to prevent what happens inside. There is no love for Harry in there. They treat him like dirt; they use him like a house elf. He is both physically and emotionally abused, and being his godfather I can't allow that." Sirius said in a tone of finality.

Dumbledore sighed in defeat. He truly doesn't know what goes on in the house. He only has a few monitors set up to indicate Harry's general health, a Dark Mark detector ward, and a detector that indicates the blood ward strength, which he knows it is not as strong as it could be. "Very well, I concede, what do you suggest?"

"If I may sir?" Harry spoke up. "Knowing that my Godfather is free and has a home to offer, I do not consider the Dursleys to be my home anymore, and I hope I will never have to see them again. I lived in a cupboard for the first 10 years of my life for Merlin's sake, there is no love in that house, and there never was, and there will certainly be no love lost if we never see each other again." As soon as he said that one of Dumbledore's instruments started smoking.

Dumbledore rubbed the bridge of his nose as he looked at the instrument. "Well it looks like the wards fell as soon as you said that you don't consider that your home anymore. Very well I see that the best option would be for Sirius to take you in. Which property are you going to use. Maybe I can help ward it?"

"Well I am thinking of getting a new place built, to symbolize the start of our new lives, and start with a clean slate. Meanwhile, I guess we will live in my manor at Grimmauld Place for a few weeks until our new house gets built." Sirius offered. He didn't say "I don't want you near my house," out loud. He did get him a trial after all, but the fact that Dumbledore is partly responsible for Azkaban stint in the first place does create for some animosity.

Harry looked excited at the prospect of having a new house, living with his godfather, and probably Lupin also.

"I plan on gaining some honor back to the Black name. The Ancient and Most Noble House of Black has been tainted by the likes of Narcissa and Bellatrix, I will probably disown them from the family and invite the Tonks back in." After seeing Harry's blank look he added "My mother disowned them and me from the family, but since I am the last male I am the head of the house I have control of everything." He said with a smile. "The previous head, Arcturus, died about 3 years ago, and it fell to me. Of course I didn't know about it in prison so as I couldn't feel the magic signs through the wards, so the house was left in limbo for the past 3 years."

Dumbledore got stood up. "Alas, I'm sorry to have to cut this meeting short but there is one more thing I have to say before I have to go. At the trial today I noticed something peculiar, the Dark Mark on Peter's arm, it was slightly darker, almost imperceptibly darker. "

"I noticed it too professor." Harry offered.

"Yes well, this can only mean one thing, Voldemort is on the rise, it can only mean that he is out of his spirit form, but anything thing else beyond that is a mystery. I think I will floo call Severus momentarily". Dumbledore grabbed some powder and threw it into the fireplace, and reappeared 30 seconds later.

"Ah yes, it is as I feared, it looks like something big is going to happen in the upcoming years, but it has only just started. I can only say to you Harry that you must keep your wits about you. Help is always available, but I can't explain everything yet, I myself don't have all the answers…yet." Dumbledore said mysteriously.

"I guess I can't just have a quiet year can I, huh? First year it was Quirrell being possessed by Voldemort. Next year it was him possessing a diary. Then it was my parent's betrayer. And now it looks like He is back at it again. That about sum it up?"

Dumbledore nodded his head and sighed for the tenth time that night. "I must bid you goodbye for now. How about you give Sirius a proper tour of the castle, I'm sure he hasn't seen it properly in a long time. There is only a few more days left of the term, I hope you enjoy yourself."

Sirius and Harry started walking the halls, Sirius was doing most of the talking, and mostly about past stunts the Marauders pulled. They were walking past the girls bathroom on the second floor when Harry stopped and motioned Sirius to follow him in. Sirius just lifted an eyebrow and entered without saying anything.

Harry walked up to one of the sinks and hissed "open" in parseltongue,. He then got an idea and hissed "stairs".

"Welcome to the chamber of secrets." Sirius jaw dropped.

"Is it safe?" Sirius said peering down the down the pitch black hole.

"Only one way to find out" Harry just grinned and started walking down.

"I haven't been down here in almost a year. I would like to explore it before the term is over, see if there is anything interesting. I know the basilisk could probably be harvested for parts, but other than that there must be rooms or something down here." Sirius didn't say anything but continued walking down the stairs. Eventually they emerged and Sirius' jaw flapped opened. They walked past the shed basilisk skin.

They walked up to the doors, a quick hiss of "open" and they slowly parted. The entered and Sirius finally spoke up with just "wow". The 60 foot basilisk was still there, as expected, and it still looked as fresh as the day it was killed.

They both started examining the walls not saying anything until they came to the statue of Salazar Slytherin. Harry, recalling back the password to open it, hissed out "speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four". The mouth on the statue opened and they walked in, wands lit. The tunnel looked like it went straight back for many hundreds of feet. He could faintly see light all the way at the end. They started walking and a few dozen feet down the way was a door. They entered.

The door led to another passageway that was a few dozen feet long, at the end was a portrait, who Harry guessed was of Salazar Slytherin himself. He walked up to the portrait and it immediately woke up and gave a world class sneer that Snape would be envious of.

"Well what do we have here? You certainly don't look like that arrogant prick Tom… Tell me boy what you seek!"

"I'm sorry sir" Harry stammered out, then he hissed "I only seek knowledge to rid the world of the evil known as Lord Voldemort, once and for all!"

"Ah another speaker" Salazar smiled and hissed back at the same time. "You have noble intentions, yet you have my gift. Tell me how a Gryffindor such as yourself has my gift."

"Well I'm not exactly sure how I have the gift. I'm sure Headmaster Dumbledore knows but he hasn't told me, but if I were to venture a guess I would say Voldemort unintentionally gave me the gift when his killing curse rebounded off me and hit him when I was a baby. As far as I know I'm not related to you in anyway, but if my suspicions are correct I am probably related to Gryffindor. Also the sorting hat did want sort me into Slytherin but I asked it not to, because by that time I had run into some bad eggs from your house and they disgusted me. I don't know too much about the other members of the house, but the most prominent members are the most repulsive and I'm afraid that everyone thinks that the whole house is the same. The Head of the house certainly doesn't make the job of liking them any easier."

"How curious. You say that you survived the killing curse as an infant. That is simply unheard of. There must have been some outside force. If what you say about Voldemort still alive, then you are not the only person to survive the killing curse."

"I haven't thought of it like that." Harry said.

"There are a few ways that a man as dark and evil as Voldemort can survive the killing curse, but that is neither here nor there. I can, however, say that the method that you survived with, and the method he survived with, are different."

"Dumbledore always told me that it was my mother's love that protected me." Harry said with a hint of suspicion.

"Well if that were the case surely there would have been other people in a similar situation who have survived the curse, but I have heard of no such thing. I think Dumbledore is just using it as an excuse to keep you under his wing."

Sirius just looked upon the two with a bemused expression on his face, not able to understand any of the hissing that has been going on for the past 10 minutes. "So…care to fill me in on your jovial discussions?"

"So what exactly are you guarding behind your portrait?" Harry said in English this time.

"Well there are my personal chambers, my library, my training room, a sitting room, a bathroom, and a research and potions lab. I will let you in because I can sense your pure intentions, unlike Tom. I did not let him in when he was here. He wanted to use my knowledge to "cleanse the world" as he put it. Regardless he still wrought havoc to the country without my knowledge, but I fear what more he could of done with it. Inside the library you will find some of the most dangerous spells ever created, many of them by myself. I do not need to tell you to be careful. But I will tell you to follow your heart, your intentions are what make a person, and your intentions are what separate the good from evil. You are the first person to enter my chambers since I last did over 1000 years ago, I hope you make good use of it. "

"Thank you I will." Harry said sincerely.

Salazar nodded once and the portrait opened up to reveal a stunning room. There was elegant furniture that was still stylish 1000 years after it was made. There was a lot of green and silver, along with a lot of gold, and of course a snake motif. Harry walked into the next room, which happened to be the bedroom. There was a large bed, and a large fireplace, to go along with the elegance of the room. Harry thought it was quite a romantic setup in the room. He was also thinking of the possibilities with girls and the room, "Sirius must be rubbing off on me already" he said to himself. Attached to the room was the bathroom. There was a large tub in it that Harry thought could hold 8 people.

As they were exiting the room Sirius spoke up with a mischievous smile "So pup, and special girls in your life you plan on taking down here?"

Harry stammered for a moment and blinked a few times before answering. "Er, not really, no. There's not too many choices to be honest with you."

"Well I'm sure any sensible you man like yourself has a rundown on the school." Sirius said with a grin.

"Well…Hermione is like a sister to me. Parvati and Lavender are too giggly even by girl standards. Ginny is off limits." Harry was counting off his fingers as if reciting a list. "Susan Bones is okay, Hannah Abbot is going to be quite the looker in a few years and they are both nice. Lets see, Ravenclaw. Padma is nice, and is quiet unlike her twin. Su Li is the shyest person in the school, and probably smarter than Hermione. I don't know much about Lisa or Mandy, not even their last names." Harry laughed. He would never of thought he would be here in this situation, talking about girls with Sirius in a dank chamber deep under the castle. Yet Sirius was a well known ladies man, and then again, Harry never thought he would be living with him in the future either. "I know there are four girls in my year in Slytherin. Pansy and Millicent are part of Draco's group, and I wouldn't be caught anywhere near them. I don't know the names of the other two, other than the fact that they are not part of the normal snake gang."

Sirius had a smile on his face while he listened to Harry, just glad that he got him to open up a little bit. "Haha, taking after me rather than your father, I'm proud of you pup. Your dad only had eyes for your mom every since the first year, not to say that he didn't expand his interests. Of course he did eventually get the girl of his dreams though. I, on the other hand, have 12 years of solitude to make up for."

They proceeded to the next room, which was the training room. There are targets lining the far wall. They all look to be made out of some sort of metal. He would have to test them out later. He checked out the next room which had a bunch of granite tables set up. There were also a lot of cauldrons set up and rack upon rack of potion ingredients. Harry was sure there are probably a lot of rare ingredients that have been preserved for a millennium, but he was damned if he was going to make any headway in them, with all of his 3 years of potion experiences with Snape. He would probably have to look up some books to help him with the ingredients though. Damned if he knew what a ground up brain stalk of a quintaped is used for.

The next room was the room Harry has been waiting for. Harry is not the type of person to lock himself up in a library for hours like Hermione, but with this wealth of information that just might change. Even Sirius was impressed with the types of books here. He said "The Black family library is quite impressive, even if it is largely dark, but it doesn't hold a candle to this."

There weren't a lot of books per se, but the fact that they were all over 1000 years old was what made it impressive. There were books on every subject you could think of, and some on subjects you couldn't. There were books written by Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and of course Salazar himself, not to mention dozens of his personal journals. He also saw dozens of books written in parseltongue, and what the books called "parselmagic", which he never heard of before, but guessed it was no different than spells in any other language. He knew these books would definitely give him a huge advantage over his opponents in the future. Harry immediately set a dozen of the parseltongue books out.

He started scanning the shelves again and was surprised to see a few books by Merlin himself. He took out a book simply named "Theory of Magic" The other books by Merlin were simply way above his level at the present time. Continuing down the rows he saw books on transfiguration, and pulled one out on animagi, which made Sirius smile. He came across many spell books on charms, jinxes, hexes, curses, and the defenses against them, including counters and battle tactics, and took a few out, including what he surmised would be categorized as a beginners book on the dark arts. He imagined back during the times of the founders, magic wasn't categorized as light and dark yet, there was just good and evil deeds. He figured he would have to go through the library with an open mind if he was to learn anything at all.

He saw many potent potion books that would make Snape trade his own body parts for. He took one on basic ingredient theory, which is just to say how ingredients react with each other. Quickly looking through the book Harry quickly learned more about potions in 10 minutes than he did with Snape in 3 years. "If only he taught us this from the beginning the class wouldn't suck so much" he thought to himself. He took a few more of the easier books, and a really advanced one that he hoped to bribe Snape with sometime in the future.

He saw a lot of books on topics that he knew he didn't have enough understanding for yet. He saw books on topics such as blood magic, warding, runes, arithmancy, spell crafting, wand crafting, mind magic, elemental magic, just to name some of the first ones he saw. And of course he saw tons of books that had the word "Advanced" in the title so he skipped over all of those. Harry actually took a book on elemental magic and wand crafting. And on second thought he took out a book on runes and arithmancy thinking ahead that he might try to get into those classes for his fourth year, instead of fluff classes like magical creatures and divination.

Finally satisfied that he had enough books, probably around 25, he shrunk them down and put them in bag. He noticed that even Sirius grabbed a few books, but Harry thought better than asking them what they were, knowing Sirius they were probably sex magic or some such thing, but you never know with him.

Looking back at the library, he would estimate that half of the books were unreadable, in different languages and lost dialects. Some he could learn, others probably not. He was able to identify that quite a few were in Greek and Latin, the latter of which is what a lot of modern spell incantations are in. Greek also has it uses in classes like ancient runes, so Harry might be getting some exposure to it in the future. He was thinking of just learning the languages outright, as the books would surely hold magic that has been lost to the world for a long time. He also saw a few dozen books that looked parseltongue in nature, but he surmised they were in other animal languages. Thankfully a lot of the books had notes written in the margins, presumably written by Salazar as they were in antiquated English. He might just be able to scrap some knowledge out of the foreign books if he could follow the wand diagrams and effect pictures. There were also books in other modern languages like French, Italian, and German, but the majority were probably just copies of each other.

He further noted that the vast majority of the English books were very advanced, and he would probably not get to much use out of them yet. However if he were to estimate, he would guess that about 10% of the library he could get any immediate use out of, and that was about 1000 books. 1000 books is a large number, but there is bound to be multiple copies of books, and repeated information across them.

They exited Salazar's chamber and decided to follow the tunnel to the end to see where it led. They must have walked a mile before they emerged into the forbidden forest.

"This must be how the basilisk got out to hunt." Harry thought out loud.

"I imagine so. We could probably come back here during the summer. This has got to be past the apparition wards." Sirius responded.

Harry nodded. "Probably a good idea to return all the books here when we are done with them too, wouldn't want to leave them in the wrong hands."

They decided to head back up in to the castle. It was near dinner time, and Sirius decided he was going to leave that night to start working out the details of having a castle built with his ministry compensation.

A/N I tried to show that while the library is vast, only a small portion is actually usable. The chamber of secrets tends to get cliché, but there's only so much you can do when everything has been done already.


	5. Meeting Daphne & Cliche Shopping

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

Warning: Cliché independant!harry shopping trip content ahead

The next few days went by quickly. Sirius was giving Harry a few owls a day with updates to the housing situation. He said he found a firm in Diagon Alley that uses house elves for large scale construction, and they found a quarry that is going to supply the massive amount of stone. He said once they get down the details of the layout they could have it built and warded in 2 weeks. Harry is surprised on how quickly it could get done, and not for the first time he truly appreciated magic.

The leaving feast came and went, nothing out of the extraordinary happened. Harry, Ron, and Hermione boarded the train and grabbed a compartment for themselves. Ron and Harry started talking Quidditch of course. Ron told Harry about the World Cup that was happening in two weeks and how his family can get tickets through the ministry; they invited Harry and Hermione along. He also invited Harry over to the Burrow for a few days before the cup, which would work out fine for him.

Harry would spend the first week of vacation at 12 Grimmauld Place with Sirius, then the next 5 days with Ron, then the World Cup, then back to Sirius, and hopefully the castle is finished soon after. After a few games of exploding snap, Malfoy decided to drop by as usual, but a few snide comments about his dad later, he left with his goons. The rest of the ride went smoothly.

Harry met up with the Weasley's outside the train and they started talking about the plans for the World Cup. Sirius came over to take Harry to the house, but the Weasley's looked slightly uncomfortable at him, which is to be expected. He has only been a free man for a week. Plus Sirius wasn't going to go to the world cup anyway. He doesn't want to make that big of a stir yet, he was going to give people time to realize he wasn't the murdering bastard everyone thought he was.

They arrived at Grimmauld Place and spent the next two days there. The place was dark, dusty, and unkempt. No one has lived there since the last Black died a few years back, other than the deranged house elf. They cleaned up the living room, and just sat around the fire drinking butterbeers, and talking about the past. Sirius talked about some fond memories of the Marauders. Harry told stories about his first 2 years of school, including the stories about the philosophers' stone and the battle in the chamber of secrets. Sirius looked horrified and prideful at the same time after hearing what he has gone through.

The next day they decided for a trip to Diagon Alley. First they went down Gringotts and Harry wanted to visit his vault to get money but Sirius quickly cut him off.

"Don't worry about money kid, I got you covered. My vault probably has close to 50 million galleons. Your trust vault, if what I remember what James told me, refills once a year back up to 5000 galleons, and 1000 of that is used for school. Not to mention your family vault."

Harry look bewildered at this. "No one ever told me I had more than one vault."

"You won't be able to do much with the gold in your family vault until you turn of age, even if you are the head of the house. You can however assign financial advisors and look at an overview of your accounts. I'm surprised no one has told you this before."

"I think most people forget that I was raised by muggles. Either that or they purposely didn't tell me. Heck I don't even know what my parents did after school."

"I'm sorry pup, I'll have to share some stories about our post Hogwarts careers. Your dad and I were both Aurors, we were a great team… Lily was a ministry warder with the DMLE. Great with charms she was." The rest of the ride was spent in silence.

They reached the Black family vault. It was guarded by a dragon, being one of the old vaults, and the goblin had to use clankers to bypass it. They opened the vault and Harry was in awe of what he saw. There was a ton of gold on the left. In the middle were some books, artifacts and heirlooms. On the right was weapons and furniture. Everything had the Black family crest.

"Don't touch anything Harry; some of the stuff in here might be cursed." Sirius said seriously.

Harry nodded an affirmative.

They went over to the gold and Sirius have Harry a sack of gold. "Here is 10000 galleons, don't spend it all in one place."

Harry looked like he was about to protest but Sirius wouldn't have any of it. "There is an easier way to carry a large amount of gold. There are special wallets that are tied directly to the vault, but since you are not related by blood you can't get one, so you will just have to settle for a charmed bag."

Harry took one look at the bag, it wasn't any bigger than 6 inches in diameter. One would think that 10000 galleons would take up a few feet, but again magic is a wonderful thing. Harry looked inside and saw that there was 10 smaller bag, each with 1000 galleons in it, and the galleons were all rolled neatly in paper rolls if 50 each, similar to how muggles do their quarters. Harry didn't know what to do so he just gave a huge hug to Sirius and said thanks. "If I can't give money to my godson, then who else can I give it to?"

Sirius pointed out a few vaults that they could see in the distance. One that was guarded by a Hebridean Black dragon, was the Potter Family Vault. They could see another vault to the right of the Black vault a few hundred feet away, and that was the Bones vault. The vault a few hundred feet to the left was the Chang vault, guarded, ironically, by a Chinese Fireball. They quickly made there was up to the surface in a cart and went into the alley. Harry and Sirius decided the first thing to do was to get a makeover. Sirius still looked like a mess fresh out of Azkaban, and Harry didn't look much better. He wanted something done with his hair and get rid of his glasses.

They first went into Madam Malkins, they both needed new wardrobes. Harry got many pairs of robes, of all different types and colors, and even a few dress robes. He made sure he got a few robes with his family crest on it for formal occasions. Sirius took a lot longer; he was much pickier about every color and style. They ended up paying close to 500 Galleons for the few dozen robes.

They went into a place that gave haircuts. Sirius seemed to know exactly what he wanted, and after chatting up one of the fine ladies they went over to one of the chairs. Harry was greeted by a very attractive witch, who looked vaguely familiar. He thought she might be in his year. She walked up to him, and he saw Sirius give him a wink.

"What can I do for you Potter, finally want something done with that bird nest?" She sounded nasty but she said it with a playful smirk on her face.

"Well I, uh, I would like my hair about shoulder length, so I can tie it up in the back. Like what my godfather has." Harry responded. Sirius never looked prouder than at that moment.

"Ah so you are going for the badass look? It might work for you but you will need to get contacts to replace those hideous glasses. I could probably work it out so you will have some hair to cover your scar."

"I would like that." Harry felt really comfortable with her, and he didn't even know her name yet. He decided to check her out, being the hormonal 13-not-yet-14-year-old he was. She was wearing a sort of medieval gothic style corset; it accentuated her in the right places. Harry surmised that it was probably made from dragonhide, and was probably as functional as it was hot, meaning very. He noticed her ample chest of course; he liked what he saw, and that was saying something since she couldn't be much older than Harry; no more than 14. They were about the same height, she had nice toned legs. She had on some sort of leather and metal chain skirt, which again, was equally hot and functional. She also had some sort of shortsword on her waist, it had what looked like a family crest on it, but it was unfamiliar. She also had on dragonhide leather boots that looked great on her too. She was clearly going for the sexy and dangerous look, and Harry liked it immensely. What really took his breath away was her face and hair. She had a cute face, nice teeth, and bright blue eyes. Those eyes were almost as bright as his, and he half expected them to start twinkling like Dumbledore's. She had some sort of half splayed bun haircut (Harry is a guy and doesn't know the technical name), with a few locks of hair covering her face, and she had a few strands of hair that were accented with red, that matched some of the fasteners and trim on her outfit. Harry was tempted to just run over to her and smell her hair, that's how delicious it looked. All in all she was the most attractive person Harry has ever seen, and not just in his year either, that's not saying too much however when there are people like Eloise Midgen and Millicent Bulstrode walking around. She was definitely more attractive than Cho Chang, who he couldn't help but stare at last year, as she was the prettiest girl in Ravenclaw. Plus this girl didn't gawk at his scar so that immediately put her high in his book. He made all these observations in about 1 second, it is a talent that most boys his age try to do, but many fail.

"Like what you see?" she said, clearly flirting with him.

He just nodded. "Er" was all he managed to say.

They went over to a chair, and Harry managed a coherent sentence. "So what's your name? I think you are in the same year, but I don't know too many people in the other houses."

"I'm Daphne Greengrass, I'm in Slytherin." She said.

"Ah. So you're one of the ones who doesn't follow Malfoy around like a sick puppy. "

"You could say that. Not everyone in the house likes Malfoy. Heck I would say the majority of us hate him."

"Really, I would not of guessed that." he said genuinely surprised.

"He gives our house a bad name, but there is not much we can do because of who his dad is. He doesn't have many true friends; I would call them allies at the most. Right now it's either ally with him, or be neutral. I am neutral, as are my friends Tracey Davis and Blaise Zabini." She found herself opening up to the Gryffindor Golden boy for some reason, and she couldn't figure out why. She has heard rumors about him of course, but he is a lot different than what she has heard, that's for sure. Plus he is kind of cute, and will be even more so after he gets his makeover. "Neutrality is term that is lost to a lot of people. Most think in only one dimension, you are either with them, or against them. You will find that Neutral families like mine are a lot more open minded about the world, muggles, magic, and politics in general."

"I don't think I've heard of a neutral family before"

"That's because we don't make our standings known. It just means that we don't have any pre-existing alliances with the traditionally light or dark families. We don't have obligations to the Dark lord, or Dumbledore. Our only obligations are to our family and business. You will find that most of the neutral families like mine are only average in wealth. It's a means of increasing our families wealth by dealing both sides without the possibility of losing it all."

"And then there are families like Malfoy's who through it behind whatever Dark Lord is reigning and either gain a lot or lose it all?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. They are still living off wealth from some foreign tyrant in the 1700's. There are also families that choose to be neutral because they are so wealthy they just don't care about anyone else. " She responded.

She was already plotting to herself on how to get him before the other girls swoon over him. Unknown to her, Harry was thinking the exact same thing; how to get to know her better before other guys discover her. "I'm surprised you are actually willing to talk with a Slytherin such as myself, I didn't think the Golden Boy had it in him to see past the house prejudices."

"Ha… well to be honest, I have been opening my outlook the past few weeks. When I first entered the magical world I was immediately told how all Slytherins are evil and dark, and I met the git Malfoy in Diagon alley, and later on the train."

She snorted in disgust "It almost sounds like a setup to me. And you met Weasley on the train; everyone knows what that families opinion on everyone who doesn't preach Dumbledorianism."

"This past week though everything has changed. I learned that my parent's true betrayer was in Gryffindor. I've discovered that dark does not necessarily mean evil, and the same could be said about the light, and it's all about the intent. And I have been thinking about the inter-house relationships, and I have come to realize that I didn't know many people outside my own house, and I don't even know everybody in my own year, you are a good example of that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well I didn't even know your name before today. I know you don't follow Malfoy. You didn't gawk at my scar when we first met like everyone else does, and that immediately put you high up on my good list. Plus you are attractive, have been nice to me, and are easy to talk too. And I will be the first to admit that I am very shy, and I find myself opening up to you even though we just met."

Daphne had a contemplative look on her face. She didn't know what to say so she changed the subject. "Your hair is very tricky. I don't suppose you are a metamorphmagus?"

"A what?"

"They are shapeshifters, they can change their appearance at will. It is something you are born with, you can't really learn it." She explained. "Your hair is being very difficult." She kept prodding his hair with her wand.

Harry was thinking. "Well one time when I was younger my aunt shaved my head bald, and it grew back by the next day. Do you think I am one?"

"Well I would say you might just be a partial metamorph. If you were a full one you would have displayed other traits such as body parts changing at random. Your hair is almost done. Once it's done it will probably stay that way until you can control your limited powers to change it."

"I thank you for that. I haven't been able to do anything with my hair ever, they say it runs in the family."

Daphne just gave him a warm smile.

"I don't suppose you are going to the Quidditch World Cup?"

"Yeah Tracey and I are going with our families. Maybe we'll see each other there?" she said with her smile still on her face.

"I would like that. I'm going with the Weasley's but I should be able to get away."

"Oh and there is one thing I probably shouldn't mention, but seeing as you are the boy-who-lived…" She leaned in to whisper into his ear. "There are rumors going around that something is going to go down at the cup. I don't know what, but my family has ties with other families who have ties with "those" families, if you catch what I'm saying… My family is a neutral family, but I get the feeling something big is going to be happening soon. The families are getting more active and more secretive. Just keep your wits about you and I hope to see you there."

"Thanks for the warning. I also got a bad feeling in my stomach too. Say where did you get your outfit made, it looks great on you."

She laughed. "Well there is an armorer down in the business section of the alley. They make and sell many different types of leather and metal armor. You can never be too careful when you are trying to be neutral."

"Do they do custom orders? I have my own hide I can supply."

"I don't see why he wouldn't, money is money."

Harry paid the few galleons and left the shop with Sirius and a smile on his face. Sirius just had to needle him. "Well it looks like the pup might be interested in a certain lovely lady."

"Yeah you might be right." He said with a grin. "I guess I have another girl to add to the list, right at the top."

They continued down the alley, they walked past the book shop, and went down an offshoot alley that led into the back of Knockturn alley, where there was a wand shop. "I need to get a wand, mine was snapped when I was chucked in jail. You can get a second wand, you can never be too careful. I hear this guy crafts wands from scratch, and no premade ones for kids to choose from. Plus they won't have the Ministry tracking charms." Sirius said with a smile.

They quickly entered the nondescript shop, where a man greeted them. The shop itself was very clean, but very old. The man looked regal, but also very old, maybe even older than Dumbledore. "Ah, welcome to my shop, you may call me Gellert. What can I do for you?

Sirius looked intimidated, and that doesn't happen too often. "Well, my godson and I would like to get custom wands, we hear you make only the best."

"Well that is often the case, come follow me to the back. The process is simple, on the right side of the room I have many different ingredients that can be used for the wand core, and on the right is the woods the wand can be made out of. It is not uncommon for multiples of each to be chosen. All you have to do is hold your hand over the material, and you should simply feel a magical connection. The strength of the connection is determined by how attuned it is with your magic. Usually the materials are also symbolic to your life in some way."

Sirius decided to go first. Gellert was describing the cores that Sirius was choosing, but Harry was too busy looking at some of the fascinating items on the lower shelves. He only heard snippets of conversation such as "Fang of the Grim". 20 minutes later and Sirius had 2 cores picked out and 2 woods.

Harry's turn was next and he put his hand up and concentrated. He felt quite a few pulls, although two of them were a lot stronger than the rest. His hand felt slightly tingly over a vial of basilisk venom, but he ignored it. Gellert looked like he was going to say something, but stopped when Harry kept walking, almost looking disappointed.

Harry continued on until he came across another liquid. Again his hand felt tingly, and he saw the label "phoenix tears". He kept walking. And again Gellert looked disappointed. No one saw him remove both the phoenix tears and basilisk venom off the shelf though.

Harry felt the two strongest magical attractions next; he went to the first one that looked like a scale. "Ah, the scale of Storm Dragon. They are extinct, but they are the ancestors of the Hebridean Black. Very interesting. I have never used one before as they are extremely rare, but if I may hazard a guess I would say the connection has something to do with the Potter Family Line, but no Potter has ever come here before. Dragon scale is known for being extremely magic resistant, and the storm dragon scale is probably more resistant than even basilisk hide, alas storm dragon hide is nonexistent, and basilisk hide nearly so as well. However this scale will enhance your defensive spells like none other." Gellert looked giddy as Harry went over to the next core material.

Harry went over to a jar that guessed had some sort of heartstring in it, but the only heartstring he has heard of before was from a dragon. Gellert took a page out of Ollivander's book and said "Curious, very curious."

"What is curious sir?" obliging the old man. Harry was half tempted to just wait him out to see if he would continue on without his urging.

"I just can't figure out your connection with this item. You have probably never even heard of this magical creature this heartstring comes from. This is the heartstring of a nundu, the most dangerous and powerful magical creature in the world. None has ever been taking down with anything less than 100 fully trained wizards. For you to have a connection with this item, you must be on the road to becoming an extremely powerful wizard, greater than Dumbledore, even greater than Voldemort in pure power, and certainly greater than dark lords of ages past… I expect the world shall see great things from you. I on the other hand, look forward to working with this material, I have never used it before, and I doubt I ever will again. It will be an extremely powerful focus."

Harry and Sirius just stood there with jaws open. Harry snapped out of it and went over to the woods. He felt 3 connections 2 of them strong, and one of them faint. Gellert said something about how most people who come in end up with dual core wands with a single wood. Sirius was above average with a wood nicknamed "wood of the betrayed," which no one could deny was sadly fitting, yet made for a great wand.

The first wood he went to was hidden in the far right corner, looking neglected. Gellert exclaimed "Wood from the Lifegiver, the world tree Yddrassil. This wood hasn't been chosen in nearly 500 years, and as with all mythical trees, is extremely rare. You do have a talent for the obscure materials though" he said with a smile on his face.

Harry was just thinking to himself, not for the first time, "Damnit Damnit Damnit! Why can't I just be normal for once?"

He felt a faint toward the middle of the room. "Ah, holly, no surprise there." But Harry didn't pick it up. He walked over to where he felt the second strong pull.

"Oh my, The tree of death, it is so old no one even remembers the true name of the fabled tree. I shall no longer surprised by anything coming from you Mr. Potter." he said with a grin. "I do see the whole picture of your wand though. The woods balance each other out perfectly. This wand can cast amazing offensive spells as well as amazing defensive spells. This wand will be the ultimate "Gray Mage" wand, it is neither dark nor light, but both. Has the powers of both yet the disadvantages of neither." Gellert himself seemed awed by the whole ordeal, and he is the one going to be making it. He then added to himself that was barely audible "This wand will probably be greater than the Deathstick itself, although I haven't seen it in many years… and who knows what would happen if they fought each other…"

"Ah yes, Mr. black you wand will take about an hour to make, and the price with be 167 galleons." Sirius paid without question. "Mr. Potter your wand I estimate will take 3 hours to make, and cost 1350 galleons, and ill thrown in a few charmed dragonhide holsters." Harry blinked many times at the price, before paying up without a word. Sirius just stood there shocked. An average wizard probably makes that much gold in 6 months. They left the store and went back to the alley for a few hours.

First stop was a just an odds and ends shop. Harry bought a charmed trunk with expanded compartment space, password protection, and shrinking/enlarging triggers. He set the password in parseltongue to ensure no one would get in.

Next shop was a magical optometrist. He decided to forgo contacts completely to get the much costlier eye repair. There was no simple and painless way to do it. He pretty much got all his nerves in his eye removed and regrown, the process took only 15 minutes and put him back 250 galleons, but the results were priceless. Hurt like a bitch however.

Next they went to the armor, which was right next to the construction firm. Inside was a burly looking guy with a great beard, and the look of a man who is proud of his work. He greeted them. "How may Bartley be of service me lords."

Sirius spoke up first, "I just require a simple practical suit of dragonhide."

"Certainly, I suggest a Ukrainian Ironbelly hide. Very strong, not to hard to make, simple yet elegant." Bartley motioned over to a suit that was silver in color but with hints of black. He called for one of his attendants to fit him up.

Harry spoke up. "I would like to commission a custom set of armor." Bartley started stroking his beard with a smile on his face. "I may be able to get you fresh basilisk hide." Bartley looked astonished at this statement. He has worked with the material before, but never in a large amount and nothing over a wand holster.

"Yes, I can do it. It is tough stuff to work with, but that is to be expected for the strongest hide. It will take some time to work on. I will probably have to dedicate all my time to it to ensure it comes out in my highest quality. I assume the hide is complete, scales and all?"

"Yes sir, the basilisk is freshly slain and has not been harvested."

They started haggling over a price. Sirius's was going to be significantly cheaper, as his armor was already made and of average quality. Harry's was going to be expensive; Bartley would make it the best quality possible, and working with such a hide is hard work. Eventually Sirius spoke "Half now, half when it's complete?"

Bartley nodded his head. Sirius paid 1750, plus 300 for his armor. They made arrangements to have the basilisk to arrive in a few days once they clean it up. They would probably recruit Snape for the task at their mutual distaste.

They finally headed into the construction contractor office to finish their design work. Sirius already planned out the majority of it and the elves already started working, they finished some of the groundwork already. There was going to be a great hall, around half the size of Hogwart's, it would double as a ballroom. There was a private dining room that could hold about 20 people. There was a large kitchen, which Harry insisted they implement muggle technology in, which they were able to do thanks to one of their muggleborn workers. There are 3 master bedrooms, one for each Remus, Sirius, and Harry. There are also 20 guest rooms. The castle itself is 4 stories tall, with 1 dungeon level. The size of the castle doesn't compare with Hogwarts at all, but it is still impressive. There was a library of course, but Harry planned to keep all his special books in his library in his room. He also convinced Sirius to add some additions onto his room, he wanted his own potions lab, and he wanted a TV for his room, to which Sirius had no clue what one was. He also wanted a jaccuzi for his bathroom, again Sirius was clueless, but thanks to the firm they were able to do it. Harry thought about dressing his room up in his house colors, but decided to go on Jade and black accents, and a multicolored blue/silver carpet.

The dungeon housed a large potion workroom, a dueling room, and a physical training room, all heavily warded of course. Outside there was a swimming pool, which Sirius was already imagining himself in with all the women, and a Quidditch pitch. The final cost after all the warding would be just shy of 3 million galleons. Sirius and Harry were both daydreaming of the parties they were going to hold there. They were going to reestablish their family social ties. The warding was schedulde to be finished the day after the World Cup, which works out perfectly. Harry's armor should be done the day before he goes to the Burrow.

They went back into the main alley to go pick up their wands. Harry saw Daphne leaving work and they waved at each other. They went down the back alley and into the wandcrafters. Once they paid, Gellert said. "I suspect I will see you here once again, if you ever decide you want a staff made, I got the materials if you got the coin." Harry put on the two wand holsters on his arm and practiced the wrist flick draw. He grabbed hold of his new wand for the first time and immediately felt a surge of power. He quickly put his mindset into learning some new spells during the summer. He was contemplating the staff comment. He had no practical use for such a thing…yet.

They left after that not-so-mysterious message, and Sirius apparated them to Grimmauld Place, it sure was grim and old. Harry was planning on just going through some of his books he got from the chamber of secrets, and using his new wand since the magic couldn't be tracked with it. He was looking forward to going to the Burrow, but he was looking forward even more to meeting Daphne again. Harry is rubbish with girls, and had no experience with them at all, but he felt good in her presence.

A/N edit #4. I'm re-editing this story for the 4th time. Looking back, I must say I am disappointed with the work, although it was my first story. I'm getting rid of some of the more common clichés, or just weakening them extremely. Who the fuck needs a 4234 compartment trunk and a wand with 370 cores? Still, one cannot resist the urge to make Harry a little better than pussy!canon!Harry.


	6. World Cup Fiasco

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

The week before Harry went to the Burrow went by slowly. He mostly read. Sirius was meeting with the building contractors frequently, and ordering the furnishings for the place. This was not an easy task and Harry didn't see much of him during the week.

The first book Harry read was the magical theory book written by Merlin. He suspected the book was heavily charmed for easier understanding, and probably had automatic translating charms. Knowing Merlin, anything was possible. It talked a lot about willpower and intent being the most important part of spellcasting, and not necessarily the words. He learned that you didn't need a wand to cast spells, it was just used as a focus. He also was introduced to silent casting. Learning about this was all nice and fun, but trying to forget the past 3 years of schooling was another thing all together. He never really thought about using intent to fuel his spells, instead of just relying on the words like everyone is led to believe. The theory does make a lot of sense to him now, and he wonders why modern wizards are not taught this. Probably the ministry's fault. When in doubt, blame the government.

His first thought was that it would make transfiguration a lot easier, and he was right, but he was still having trouble focusing on the end results and imagining what he wanted it to be. He figured he would have to look into some of the mind magic books eventually to help him with his focus. He was sure he has heard of a technique before but he couldn't recall it.

Just with a better understanding of the theory alone, Harry felt an increase in spell power, not to mention the fact that his new wand was a lot stronger than his old one, but he wasn't casting anything powerful in the first place to get a good gauge on his power. He got an idea and decided to cast "Lumos", and to his surprise the whole room lit up with light, and he nearly blinded himself. He was shocked he was able to do such a thing, and he didn't feel a magical drain at all.

The next day Harry went through his new potions books. He saw the advanced one and noticed it was written by Helga Hufflepuff. Harry always assumed that it was the Slytherins who were always the potions expert, but then again he surmised he doesn't really know much about history anyways. He picked up the book and took the Knight Bus over to the Leaky Cauldron. It wasn't all that far, he probably could walk there in 15 minutes. He immediately went to the apothecary, looking for his mark, and he spotted the greasy man right away and went up to him.

"Excuse me professor"

"What do you want Potter?" Snape snarled at me.

"I have a business proposition for you. I know professors pay isn't exactly great…"

"What are you rambling on about?"

"I need your help to harvest the basilisk in the chamber of secrets." Snapes eyes immediately lit up.

"Go on."

"I want the hide and some of the ingredients you harvest. You are an _esteemed _master and I figure you would be up for the job. You can have 70% of the ingredients, plus this book." He held up the book and Snape grabbed it. Snape knew basilisks parts were rare and would fetch good money, but a rare potions book would be something else.

"My word! Where did you get a book like this Potter? Written by one of the founders…this is amazing! You got yourself a deal Potter. I can bring you to the castle, when can you do this?" Snape actually smiled for the first time in his life.

"As soon as is convenient for you professor, we can go now."

"Very well, follow me and ill side-along apparate us." He said with a spring in his step. Snape did a complete 180 turn around since that night in the hospital wing where they wanted to strangle each other.

They arrived at the edge of the wards and went quickly into the castle. Students are generally not allowed in the castle during the summer so they would have to be discrete. They went to Snape's office first to grab some harvesting tools and trunks that he made weightless and expanded. They made their way up to the 2nd floor girl's bathroom and Snape only raised an eyebrow before following Harry in, then down the stairs to the basilisk. Snape immediately went to work, and Harry would be quick to say that he was even impressed how Snape worked in his element, not that he had ever harvested a large snake like that before.

The snake was completely harvested 4 hours later and they split up the goods. Harry had all hide in his trunk, along with 2 fangs and a half dozen vials of basilisk venom, among other things. Harry wasn't sure what he could do with some of the other parts so he was just going to store them away. Harry handed Snape the book, and they went back to the alley and parted ways.

Harry brought the trunk full of basilisk hide to the armorer, who looked ecstatic. He then he saw the amount of skin, and offered to buy some, buy Harry declined. "The less of my potential enemies that are protected like me, the better." He allowed the armorer to take enough hide for the armor and left.

He made his way to where Daphne worked and saw her, and asked to take her out for ice cream, and she readily agreed.

They sat outside Floreans for about an hour. They started talking about their past. Harry didn't like talking about his past at all, even Ron and Hermione don't really know how horrible it was.

"Well I grew up in a traditional pureblood setting. The Greengrass clan has lived in our manor for a few centuries. My dad is a herbologist, as all of his father's before him have been. I don't have any brothers, which is a disappointment to him, but I do have another sister who is 2 years younger, named Astoria. My family is currently a neutral family, although we were a light-sided family during the Grindelwald era. My dad believed in some of the ideals of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but not the methods he employed. I share none of his beliefs."

"I lived with my mom's muggle sister, her husband and their son. They hate any mention of magic. They live in their own little pristine world. I lived in a cupboard under the stairs for the first 10 years of my life. I was never physically abused, but I could tell my uncle thought about it many times. It's the mental abuse that I had to deal with from him. My cousin is a pig of a kid and a big bully. Naturally I was his favorite target. I got the smallest bedroom once got my Hogwarts letter, which was an adventure all in itself. I was locked up all day, except for when they needed me to do all their chores, and make food. I was only allowed to eat once a day if I was lucky."

"Wow I had no clue you grew up like that. I doubt most of the world knew that."

"You are one of the few who know. The only other person I have told that to is Sirius, he witnessed a lot of it firsthand last summer."

"Wow I don't really know what to say, that is pretty horrible. Thank god you are living with your godfather now and never have to see those nasty muggles again."

Harry left back to Grimmauld Place. He refused to ever call this place his home, it was dark and nasty. He told Sirius about the harvesting of the Basilisk, and he laughed when he mention that Snape actually smiled. Harry briefly mention his encounter with Daphne, and Sirius took on a smile on his and simply said "I'm proud of you pup."

Sirius told him that he submitted paperwork to gain official guardianship over him, and Harry was floored. Sirius indicated that there should be no problem passing the paperwork for a few reasons. One reason was that they were trying to make amends for his false imprisonment, and the second was that Sirius was indicated in the Potters will to be on the top of the list to gain guardianship of Harry if anything should happen. Second on the list was Alice and Frank Longbottom, and that wasn't possible. Surprisingly third on the list was Professor McGonagall. There were a few other names on the list, and Harry immediately realized that something wrong happened with the will and it was ignored, which is illegal. Harry figured Dumbledore probably had something to do with it, but seeing how Sirius was going to become his legal guardian, he decided to unleash his inner Slytherin and file this information away as blackmail material.

Remus Lupin visited once during the week, and they reminisced like the old buddies they were, and Harry just sat content listening to the stories about his father and friends. Harry wondered exactly what he did during the week, but he always looks like he came from a full moon.

The day arrived where he would be going to the burrow, but first he picked up his new armor. He was very impressed by the quality. He was amazed that the crafter managed to maintain all the scales on the armor without damaging a single one. The suit was also good looking as a whole, and the boots were very comfortable. There was also bracers, arm guards, gauntlets, leg greaves, and spaulders, though he imagined he would probably just wear the breastplate and boots, and maybe the bracers. He also noticed that the basilisk gloves were different than dragonhide gloves, the basilisk gloves seemed more fitting for warfare.

He only took 2 books with him, they were simply spellbooks, one was just the fifth year Hogwarts standard. Harry didn't want to be seen with any dark books or parseltongue books. Harry only learned two new spells in the week, but he made sure to master them. One was the blasting curse, "reducto". The second was a cutting curse, "diffindo". This was the basic version of the cutting curse, used for cutting thin materials. Harry assumed there were more powerful ones, but he figured that working from the bottom up and understanding the basic forms would produce better results than simply diving in to beheading charms and stone cleaving curses and the like. He tried to do things wandlessly, he wasn't expecting much of a result, but "lumos" did work for him and he summoned up a small ball of light in his hand. He figured this was already more than what most people can do and was satisfied, but he would definitely have to explore the area more, even if the spells were nowhere near as powerful as they were with his wand.

He enjoyed his stay at the Burrow. He ended up playing a lot of Quidditch with Ron and his brothers. Most of the conversations went like this;

"Quidditch…"

"Hey mate…"

"Quidditch…"

"Want to play…"

"Have you seen the ass on…?"

"Quidditch…"

Hermione tried to get them to talk about more studious topics, but little did she know Harry was working on his studies, but he didn't mention anything. Harry definitely didn't talk about his trips to Diagon alley, definitely not about his new armor he was getting, and his new wand, and he certainly didn't mention anything about his new Slytherin friend. He didn't think Ron would appreciate that too much, when he thought about it, he decided that Ron was almost as prejudiced as Malfoy, just on the opposite end of the spectrum. Ginny was still as shy as ever with her childhood crush.

When they first saw Harry's new look, they were all surprised, but the twins spoke up first saying that it fit him. He was also introduced to some of the twins new joke products, aptly named Weasley Wizarding Wheezes. Harry admitted some of the joke items were quite ingenious, a lot of the pranks were disguised as food. Harry immediately thought of Sirius, and then he realized that the twins didn't know that Sirius was one of their role models. He wouldn't divulge that piece of information yet. Percy was being his normal pompous ass, and bragging about his worthless job at the ministry.

The day before the world cup came, and they had to wake up really early to make it to the portkey zone where they would meet up with another family, the Diggory's. The got there and the dad gave Harry a weird look, but not many words were exchanged. Apparently Amos Diggory works at the ministry like Ron's dad, but in different departments. They all grabbed a hold of the portkey, which turned out to be an old boot, and they were whizzed away to the camp ground where they would set up their tent.

Harry was impressed with the tents, there was one for the guys, then there was a smaller one for the girls, they were pretty much just portable flats.

They decided to go for a walk and see the sights and vendors. If Harry though the Weasley's tent was impressive, he hadn't seen anything yet. Some of the tents were so big and abstract there was simply no words to describe them other than magical.

As they went past vendors they were slowly inundated with merchandise of their team of choice. Harry didn't know too much about the teams other than what Ron told him, so he chose Bulgaria like Ron did. Ron ended up buying a Viktor Krum action figure. Harry bought the group omnoculars, everyone protested but Harry didn't care. They were like binoculars except you could replay the action and it explains some of the tactics. He still had several thousand Galleons left over from what Sirius gave him, so he wasn't worried about the cost, but he wasn't going to tell them that.

Harry saw Daphne walking with another girl whom he assumed was her friend Tracey. He waved his friends along "I'll catch up with guys later, I see someone."

He could see hints of Daphne's dragonhide underneath her Bulgaria colors. Harry introduced himself to the girl, "Harry Potter, and you must be Tracey." Tracey was immediately impressed by the way Harry presented himself, plus he was looking good with his new makeover.

"You are correct Potter. I would never guess that Daphne would talk with you, but she hasn't stopped talking about you all week." Daphne punched Tracey jokingly when she said that and just smiled.

Harry just smiled back, "Well I never guessed I would be friends with a Slytherin, and yet I couldn't help but think of her all week also". They made small talk for a few hours before they split up and Harry went back to the Weasley's. He learned a few things about the Slytherin House Hierarchy, it's a big game of political chess essentially. As he was walking away he heard Tracey ask Daphne "So is he just a friend or is he something more?" and was answered by "I'm not sure, I'm not any good at this _feelings_ thing." Harry just smiled to himself and kept walking.

His friends had questioning looks when he arrived back but he didn't say anything other than "I saw some friends."

"Really, who?"

"Just some people from school, no one you know."

The time for the match approached and they headed up to the top box. They saw the expected top Ministry officials. Fudge was there, as was Ludo Bagman from the Department of Magical Sports and Game, and the Bulgarian Minister. Naturally the Malfoy's were there with their nastiest sneers yet. After some rude comments the game preshow started. Most of them men were enthralled by the veela, but Harry was able to ignore the charm for the most part. Ron wasn't so lucky however and looked like he wanted to jump out the window at them. Ron was also going to be unlucky after he pocketed a ton of the fake leprechaun gold.

The game was intense and Ireland ended up winning although Bulgaria caught the snitch. The twins looked victorious, apparently they made a bet with Bagman, but Bagman quickly made himself sparse and left the pavilion. The twins would not be slighted so easily though…

They got to their tents, and they talked about the match for hours when all of a sudden a commotion started up outside. Harry already had a bad feeling about this, but went outside with everyone to look anyways. There was a large crowd of people in the distance, levitating a family up in the air. They were wearing black cloaks and had white masks on. Harry knew this was bad and the group started to make towards the forest with everyone else on the campground.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Daphne and Tracey look like they were about to get trampled, so he quickly ran over there despite the protests of Ron and Hermione. "Harry where are you going?!"

"I see a group of girls getting trampled!"

"Come back mate there's nothing you can do." Ron said uncaring.

"Like hell theirs not!"

He quickly made it over to them and got them to follow him into the forest. Minutes passed and they all ran in strained silence, wondering what happened to everyone else, when he saw a bright green light flare up about 1000 feet away, and in the sky he saw a giant skull with a snake crawling out its mouth.

"This is not good" Daphne panicked. Harry quickly took hold of her hand.

"Don't worry we will be fine."

"You don't understand, that is the Dark Mark. Death eater's cast it into the sky after they kill."

"Oh shit, let's keep moving then."

Eventually they caught up with everyone else in a large clearing, and they never let go of each other's hand but they didn't realize it. They split up when they saw their respective families. Harry walked over and immediately questions came from both sides.

"What happened, why was the dark mark in the sky?" Harry asked.

"Where were you we were all worried!" They yelled.

Harry went first."I saw two of my friends getting trampled so I ran over to help them up." He immediately noticed some of the frowns on some of the faces, but they didn't ask anything else, but he didn't interpret Hermione's look as "I didn't know you had any other friends" but he ignored it.

The Weasley's explained how the mark was fired near where Ron and Hermione was, and apparently Barty Crouch's house elf stole Ron's wand while they were in the top box and conjured the Dark Mark up in the sky. They explained that the people in the cloaks were dressed up as Death Eaters and were trying to scare people while having fun with a muggle family. Harry understood this, but the house elf situation didn't quite add up. "I don't think anyone was actually killed." He just nodded and they headed out of there back to the Burrow. The event was all over the papers the next day, and everyone was in a somber mood. Sirius came to pick Harry up to go to the finished castle.

A/N I am rubbish at Quidditch scenes, if anyone wants to read it they can read the novel.


	7. The Summer

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

Harry was awed when he first arrived at the castle. The first thing he did of course was explore. Knowing Sirius there was going to be a ton of secret passages and rooms. The castle had a distinct gothic feel, but not an evil feel. It felt more like the place was permanently Halloween. There were gargoyle statues, buttresses and the like. Harry decided he loved the place immediately. He loved the atmosphere, it was similar to Hogwarts, put it had a different feel. He could definitely call the place home.

He found the potions lab in the dungeon, it wasn't yet stocked. Harry decided to find the physical training room. Sure Harry got a workout from Quidditch, but flying around doesn't exactly help all of your muscles get stronger. He wanted to start some sort of routine, probably just some weight training and running around. I'll save you the boring details. After an hour long work out, Harry needed a shower, and based on a hunch, he found a wall panel with a secret stair case that led up to the top floor where the master bedrooms were. He found his room, and decided he was going to need to figure out how to password protect his room without a portrait, he assumed there was a spell, he would have to look into it. Maybe Hermione knows. Better yet maybe Daphne knows.

After an hour long relax time in his Jacuzzi, he got out and continued his tour. He found the dueling room, it was pretty expansive and there were a few Auror grade targets. Apparently Sirius has renewed some of his old contacts from when he was an Auror with his dad. Next he went looking for the kitchen. He discovered it, and to his surprise saw a familiar house elf working in there. Apparently Dobby decided to follow Harry here and work for Sirius. After a brief conversation with a very excitable Dobby, Harry discovered that Dobby was in fact the head elf, and there was 4 other elves working there also. After another suspicious hunch, Harry found another secret passage with a staircase which, unsurprisingly, came out right across from Sirius's room. Owing to Sirius' nature, you had to tweak the Mermaid statue's breast in order to access the passage.

After thoroughly exploring the castle several times, Harry, barring nothing else to do, went to his library and brought out some of his the books he took from the chamber of secrets and started reading.

After a few days working out followed by lounging around and reading, Harry started owling Daphne. It started off as fluff letters of inconsequential importance, but eventually he decided to ask her if she wanted to come over to the castle. Of course Sirius was more than happy to have company over in his more than adequate castle. He also revealed that he was currently planning a social ball in a few weeks time to meet up with old acquaintances. He was currently working on the guest list and estimated that there would be over 100 people. He wasn't worried about any potential death eaters because he had gone all out on his warding. There was a dark mark detection ward so anyone who was marked would appear outside the outer castle wall.

Daphne owled back and decided to come over the next day.

"You didn't tell me Sirius was building a castle." She laughed out loud upon arriving.

They relaxed in one of the foyers for a few hours just talking, then they went out to the pool and swam around until dinner time. Dinner was a quiet affair. Sirius nodded his approval and Remus just sat reading a copy of the Evening Prophet.  Daphne agreed to come back in a few days time to have a repeat, they both enjoyed their day together, even if was still only as friend.

Harry was already looking forward to the next time she came over just minutes after she left. Sirius just smiled and gave a knowing grin. He hasn't said much all day, he seems to be plotting something, know him a massive prank. Harry could only hope that he was just enjoying the time with his best mates son.

Harry continued his work outs and even started weapons training. Harry knew he had a sword waiting for him at Hogwarts, so he was just using a dummy heavy sword. He was winging it, he doesn't know anyone who is a sword fighter, so he was pulling a Hermione and learning techniques from books out of the Black Library. Harry was starting to fill out good too, he was starting to notice slight muscle in places you usually don't get from Quidditch. Sirius was looking good too. He was eating healthy and he no longer had the haunted look on his face, he look normal, but you can still see the horrors of prison in his eyes if you pay attention close enough. Harry decided he was going to ask Sirius to join him for his work outs.

Harry asked and surprising enough Sirius agreed. They have talked about the first war, and they both had a feeling a second war was going to break out soon, it seemed like the calm before the storm. It seemed that Sirius was able to hold up to his name and be serious on occasion. He didn't agree to duel with Harry yet, mostly because he was out of shape, and even for an ex-Auror, way out of practice, and he didn't want to be embarrassed by a fourth year. However, much to Harry's delight, Remus agreed to teach Harry a few times a week, but he wasn't always at the castle. Remus was probably more skilled and knowledgeable than Sirius anyway, since he didn't spend 12 years in prison, and did teach at Hogwarts for a year. In fact that was the only year he actually learned anything in that class so far.

They mostly just dueled, Remus didn't teach him too many new spells, he left it up to Harry to research spells and discuss them with him, then he would use them in combat. Remus taught him proper form and techniques to optimize spell selection. He also showed how transfiguration could be useful in combat, but Harry was quite advanced enough to do that yet. Harry also wanted to try using both of his wands at the same time to duel, but again Harry realized he has to work on the basics first before diving straight in. "All in due time he thought to himself."

Harry had Sirius apparate him back to the chamber of secrets, he wanted to grab more books. He was getting of tired of having to ask him to take him places, he wondered if there was an alternate way to travel, or maybe he would just learn how to apparate even if he was underage. He brought along his trunk with him, so he took a ton of books, and on a spur of the moment he asked the portrait for a spell to password protect doors without a portrait, and it was a pretty simple modification to the locking spell "colloportus" he already knew, turns out you can use it like localized ward.

He returned with Sirius after taking well over 100 books. He was looking through one of his new parselmagic books when he found his travel problem. Apparently Salazar Slytherin discovered a way to apparate inside Hogwarts, and he dubbed it teleportation. The catch is that you can only travel in your line of sight, so you couldn't really travel through walls. This was still a major breakthrough for Harry. With enough practice you could chain a bunch of teleportation together and eventually reach your target. It might not be as good as apparition for long distances, but it is the best he's got right now and it does have its advantages; it can be used in Hogwarts; it's a parseltongue only spell and chances are Voldemort doesn't know the spell either because he hasn't seen this book.

He practiced the spell for a few hours before he had the hang of it and decided he want to try chaining it so he slowly teleported his way across the country side and made his way into London and eventually to Diagon Alley. It took him just over 10 minutes, compared to a few seconds, but it was his first try and he did take it slow. With practice and knowledge of the quickest path though the country side he could probably manage it in under a minute. He stopped by the ice cream parlor and picked out Daphne's favorite flavor and one for himself and took them over to her work.

Daphne saw Harry walk in and she ran up to him and gave him a hug. They just smiled at each other and they ate their ice cream. Harry decided to finally muster up his Gryffindor bravery. "Listen Daphne, I like you a lot…"

Daphne had a feeling she knew what was coming and was getting butterflies in her stomach. "…I like you too Potter."

Harry smiled big and then asked "Will you be my girlfriend Daph?" he kind of stumbled across the words but he managed to not panic.

"Oh I would love to…Harry!" she said excitedly. That was the first time she ever called him by his first name and he was happy.

"Well awesome! I didn't think you would say yes, but I guess there is hope for the world after all." Harry said with a laugh.

Daphne just liked back. "Well I do have to keep up appearances in Slytherin. One small slip and the guys are all over you. There shouldn't be too much fallout in the house though, if anything you will probably gain some respect for "landing the impossibly cold bitch" They both laughed together that time. "and besides, I really like you, a lot. I think this deserves a chance, don't you?"

"Yeah I do, I don't care what my friends will think, as long as our relationship gets a chance."

They just sat around inside the shop talking about the future. Harry told her about the ball and invited her to it, along with Tracey. She accepted right away. He only had a tentative list of other families who were going, some were his friends, and other were ministry officials and members of the older families. Sirius didn't invite the minister but he did invite Amelia Bones, along with quite a few people from the Auror department like the Head Rufus Scrimgeour, and Assistant head Gawain Robards. Also invited are his cousin Andromeda Tonks and her niece Nymphadora Tonks, and Kingsley Shacklebolt. He invited a few teachers too, Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sinistra, Vector, and Babbling. Harry thought the last two were a blessing in disguise; he would talk to them about getting into their arithmancy and ancient runes classes respectively. He also had a hunch that Sinistra was invited because she was mildly good looking, and only in her late twenties. The Weasley's got an invitation, but they weren't sure who would show up because there might be "unsavory" types there, but Arthur would be there at the very least because of the amount of ministry employees there. Ron probably would come, as Hermione might. The Gryffindor Quidditch team was also invited, in hopes of having a pickup game. The Longbottoms were also invited, along with Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott. A few other people from his year would probably be there but that was okay with him, he was long forward to getting to know the people in the school.

After talking about the ball for a bit they finally got serious for a few minutes. "There is a few things you should know about me. Harry told Daphne. "I am a target. I am on the top of Voldemorts list if he ever comes back. I was his downfall, and I am his greatest failure. When he rises again he will target me, and my friends. He will go after you to get me."

Daphne just gave a resigned nod. "I guess we will have to train! No matter what, being with you will be worth it I am sure. I look forward to getting to know the real Harry, even if that means putting myself in combat, I will do it just for the chance to know you."

Daphne offer to join Harry for a few hours every morning before she has to go into work. Harry agreed right away. The parted ways and Harry teleported back to the castle, he made it just under 9 minutes this time.

Daphne arrived early in the morning to the surprise of Sirius and Remus, Harry conveniently chose not to mention their new training partner. She joined straight away on one of the weight lifting machines without saying a word. Shortly after Daphne and Harry went into the spell chamber.

"I have a book on standard grade Auror spells, I figured it would be useful to learn them."

She nodded her agreement. They started off simple, with the stunning spell. Harry learned it last year but it generally isn't taught until 4th year. They also learned the standard shield charm which has the incantation 'protego'. Harry knew there were different kinds of shields, but this one was a good general purpose shield. Harry started learning the theory on the Titan Shield charm earlier in the week, it has a good use to block heavy physical objects. Harry made up a list late last night of spells he didn't know yet, but were simple and good enough for them to both learn together.

He list was a mix of offensive and defensive spells. Some of the defense spells were the few practical shield charms, disarming charm, the flame freezing charm as well as the patronus. There were far more offensive spells on the list, but in fairness a lot of them can serve more than one purpose. He had some powerful spells on the list like the bludgeoning hex, bonecrushing hex, blasting curse, bombardment curse, which pretty much an altered version of the blasting curse, the slashing curse, which is a step up from the cutting curse, various flame jinxes. He wanted to learn some of the more nastier stuff, but he couldn't even think about the entrails expulsion charm without nearly throwing up, plus he couldn't picture himself using a dark spell like that anyways. Heck he even found another killing curse besides the Avada Kedavra, and it wasn't even in a dark arts book. It was in one of Ravenclaws books. The only reason Harry could surmise why it wasn't considered one of the Unforgivables is that nearly no one knows of the existence of the spell anymore, and plus it is blockable unlike the killing curse. This is not to say that none of the other spells can't kill you, the heart stopping spell surely will if not countered within a minute, but if you get hit with this one you are dead instantly. Harry shivered at the thought, and remember he is the only one to ever survive the killing curse, he wondered briefly what would of happened if Voldemort used this spell on him instead. He shivered at the thought, and patted himself on his basilisk armor, and mentally filed away the incantation 'virtus vox nex'. Of course getting past the nastier curses he wrote down some passive spells like 'langlok', which glues the tongue to the top of the mouth, which could buy you valuable time in a fight.

He figured once they mastered some of these spells they could start working on combat tactics and battleground perception, of course he would have to convince Sirius to part with some of his auror knowledge. He would also have to learn useful transfiguration, he would probably ask for a starters guide from Dumbledore, rumor has it that he is the best. He also figured he might as well get started on his animagus form, there are a few methods, and after talking with a supportive Sirius about it. He decided to go with the potion method to discover his form, after that it's all about willpower until it becomes natural like apparition.

Training with Daphne was going good, she was quick to pick up on the spells and was a formidable partner, Harry has been using his old holly wand when dueling to keep them on fair ground. A side effect of the intensive training sessions was that Harry's potion brewing skills picked up. He was starting to understand better the reactions of the ingredients better, and the other subtleties of temperature and methods of adding ingredients of stirring. This is mostly a side effect of having to brew bone mending potions and various other healing potions. He wouldn't say he enjoyed it, mostly because he still resented Snape, but it was a necessary evil. He did brew the animagus revealing potion, actually he made enough for two people; he wanted to share the experience with Daphne. The potion wasn't overly complicated and he wondered why they didn't learn it in class. The only reason he could think of was that the process of learning to transform was very hard, but Harry had the distinct advantage of the Marauder Knowledge and his "special books" as he referred to his ancient texts. Sirius said it took 2 years for him to learn it, but with all the information he has he estimated he should be able to do it in 6 months.

They did learn a few basic healing charms, but most of the serious ones require finesse to use it properly, which takes years to master. He didn't envy Madam Pomfrey's job at all. Some of the healing charms had the benefit of being able to be misused and could be quite dangerous on an opponent.

Eventually the day of the first Black Social Ball came and Harry was nervous. He was unsure of how his friends would react to his girlfriend, but frankly he didn't find himself caring too much with his new outlook on life. He enjoyed Daphne's company a lot, even if they haven't kissed yet, a situation Harry hoped to fix tonight. He just hoped his other friends would loosen up and enjoy the event and mingle with the other guests. He barely even got any owls from them over the summer anyway since the world cup.

The first guests showed up; it was the Tonks'. Harry greeted them kindly and Harry started chatting up Auror Tonks about combat techniques and combat spell effectiveness. Harry learned a lot that hour, and Tonks was impressed with what Harry already knew. A lot of other guests arrived while they were talking, a lot of the teachers and ministry officials arrived, and Harry finally broke away from a conversation on the finer points of when to shield and when to dodge, (it's all about predicting your opponents moves) when he saw Daphne arrive. They gave each other a hug and they started to go around the room to meet with the other magic users in attendance.

He saw the Weasley's, well only Arthur, Bill, and Charlie. Charlie immediately gave his approval of Harry's new haircut, and they all laughed. They made small talk, and they approved of Daphne, so that was good in his book, but he had a feeling that Molly, Ron, and Ginny would be hard to convince, and he and impression that Ginny definitely had a crush on him, but he only thought of her as "Ron's Younger Sister". When Harry asked where the rest of the family Arthur said. "Molly didn't want them coming, she doesn't approve of such events, but I don't see why. This is a lovely idea and any event that gets like-minded families together, especially after the world cup fiasco, is a good idea. I'm not exactly sure what Molly thought this was going to be, but I'll be sure to have a talk with her."

They made small talk for a few minutes about dragons and wards. Surprisingly Charlie hasn't heard of a storm dragon before, but he said he would look into it. Bill talked about the basics about ward stones for buildings, a lot of it used ancient runes, which Harry only has a basic understanding of from the one beginners guide he started to read. That reminded him that he needed to talk with the two professors about the courses, and then ask Daphne to help him catch up. He decided to do that next.

By this time refreshments have been going steady, and appetizers were out. The house elves certainly did a good job setting this up.

Harry and Daphne spotted the two professors mingling with some unknown ministry officials and made their way over there. He quickly introduced himself around and shook several hands before finally asking the 2 professors what he could do. Luckily for him he only missed one year, which was just the introductory year for both classes. They both told him the same thing. If he would go through the respective books, understand the material, and pass the third year final before the semester starts, he can join the fourth year classes. Harry immediately asked for Daphne's assistance, as the professors told him that she was the top in both the classes for the year, she had a smug look on her face when they said that, and she readily agreed.

Sometime during the night the music started up, and Harry asked Daphne to dance. Harry never danced before and he would be the first, second, and third person to tell you that he was rubbish. Thankfully, once again, Daphne was a good dancer, and learned how to dance when she was younger. Apparently it's a side effect of growing up in a pureblood household.

Harry noticed out of the corner of his eye that his godfather was getting his moves on, as he predicted, with the astronomy professor, who looked to be enjoying herself just as much. Harry started getting more involved with the dance once he got the hang of it. After an hour of slow dancing where they just enjoyed the feel of each other, Harry finally decided to go for the kill. He slowly brought his face closer to Daphne, and she did the same until they finally met in the middle with a brief, gentle, but lingering kiss. They pulled back and smiled at each other, then both went back in for a longer, deeper kiss. This time it was interrupted by a catcall, of course it was from Sirius who was just grinning ear to ear. They spent the rest of the night just slow dancing, with her head on his shoulder. The guests slowly started to leave, after thanking both Harry and Sirius for their hospitality.

Daphne remained until the last guest left. Harry wasn't sure where Sirius and Sinistra went, but on the other hand he didn't want to know, so he offered to accompany her back to her house via floo. He met her parents for the first time, and didn't get his ass chewed out. He greeted them briefly and thanked them for allowing their daughter to come to the ball, and quickly left after a few minutes of small talk.

One week later it was Harry's Birthday. He nearly forgot about it until Daphne jumped through the floo with a birthday cake signing Happy Birthday. They decided to forgo training for the day and just enjoy time with each other. Daphne gave him his gift which was a book on the history of the Potter's. Harry just realized how little he knew about his own family, and he couldn't even get into his family vault to learn about them, and he was very grateful for her gift. Sirius gave him something he almost forgot about. He gave him his papers stating that Sirius was now Harry's official guardian, and that meant they were a real family. He said it wasn't much trouble pushing it through, they didn't even need to go to court. It turned out Dumbledore was Harry's guardian, but he was dropped quite readily when overwhelming proof was submitted of neglect, along with various borderline criminal charges concerning his actions of handling Harry. More blackmail material in Harry's opinion. He quickly learned Daphne's Slytherin motto "pick up dirt about everyone." Remus gave Harry three of his dad's personal journals from first to third year in Hogwarts. He hinted that there might be some notes on animagus transformation in there.

Harry brought Daphne up to his room for the first time, and she was impressed by the decorations, and she was curious about exactly what a TV was. Harry explained as best as he could, but then decided to just turn it on and let her see for herself. She was amazed and quickly enthralled. They watched a few random programs for awhile. Harry asked her to join him in his jazzuzi, she wasn't sure what that was but agreed anyway. She was surprised that it was a type of heated bathtub with whirlpools and jets. She quickly transfigured her robes into suitable attire, that is to say, a bikini that showed off her goods.

"Like what you see Potter?" she said with a smirk as she entered the tub.

Harry just gulped and nodded, and transfigured his pants into trunks and got in after her.

They spent the next 4 hours just snuggling and some kissing while half asleep. They both thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Eventually she left after the day was nearly done, but not before watching a movie with Harry on his bed.

* * *

The next week came and went, and it was time for the next Black Summer Ball. It went much the same as the first. Again Arthur, Charlie, and Bill were the only Weasleys that show up. Harry talked more with his other classmates. He and Neville talked for about an hour, he never really talked to the boy before but he was determined to have him open up. He noticed the guests were a lot more lively than last time. Harry was undecided if the cause was that they were just getting more comfortable, or the fact that Sirius spiked the drink.

The next day Harry decided was the day that he was going to use the freshly finished animagus form revealing potion.

He explained to Daphne what was to be expected. "It puts you into a kind of drug induced haze where you see through the eyes of the animal. The book says it is theoretically possible to have more than one form, and if you do the time would be split up evenly. It is just really rare because chances are that your form is some unspectacular and the person doesn't bother with it."

Daphne nodded and Harry poured out the two doses, they clanked their goblets together "cheers".

The taste was pretty vile, but it still seemed like wine compare to polyjuice potion. An hour later the potion induced fog episode was over and they sat there contemplating what they saw. It turns out that she was a hedgehog of some sort. It fits her personality; once you get past the hard outer shell, she's nice and cuddly. Harry had a gut feeling that she might actually be the magical version of the hedgehog, called a Knarl. They are known for being sneaky and cunning.

Harry had a very different experience. He figured that knowing his luck, he was going to have more than one form. Even having a magical creature as a form is rare enough as is. In the trance he immediately noticed he was slithering about, so it was pretty obvious he was a snake. He decided to pay attention to his surrounding to determine what kind of snake he was. He saw a lot of fire and smoke, and figured he probably was an ashwinder. He counted his blessings that he didn't pull the completely impossible and somehow was a basilisk, he would go crazy.

However his prayer was quickly cut short when his vision changed to a few feet off the ground looking out through some brush. It looked like he was in some sort of grasslands, probably a savannah. He could see a jungle in the distance so he figured he was probably In Africa. He couldn't tell what he was other than some sort of four legged predator, and he was fast, really fast. He had a feeling he was some sort of cat, he was large, fast, and a predator, and probably magical. That's where he would start. He was going to have to do some research for this one he decided. When he explained what he saw to Daphne, he also had a hunch that his snake form was not his innate form he was born with, but rather a trait probably picked up from Voldemort. That doesn't mean Voldemort ever completed the animagus training, he probably thought such things were below him or some such nonsense.

* * *

The next 2 weeks saw everyone do they usual training. Except now they were working on accessing their animagus form. They learned that once you get into the correct state of mind you will just transform into it. The common method of doing this is researching your animal completely from the inner biology to habitats. Harry did find a trick to speed up the process though, a trick the Marauders didn't use. It is called Occlumency.

Harry has read about it a few times in passing from a few of his 'special books'. It is not a commonly practiced art, so you won't find too many modern books on it. The whole purpose of occlumency is that it allows you to organize your mind and control your emotions, and you can set up a system to defend your mind against attacks. Harry liked the sound of this and wondered if it would help against the weird nightmares of Voldemort he has had a few times this summer. It turns out Daphne already knows basic occlumency, the basics are passed down through most 'traditional' pureblooded lines. She was by no means a master, but she knew enough to keep her emotions in check, and that is what Harry was aiming for.

Becoming a true master at occlumency would probably take a decade, but for the current project, organizing your mind should only take a few weeks even if you only do it for a few hours a day. So that's what Harry and Daphne did. Daphne worked on her mental defense while Harry organized his mind. He had to try a few different techniques before he found a cataloging system he liked. Anyone who walked in during this time would just see two teens who looked like they were meditating. They did this for 2 hours every morning after they did their physical workout.

Harry continued researching spells. He picked up quite a few useful spells from the parselmagic books. A lot of the spells were just the same spell as their common version, but in a different language, although a few of them were similar, but with a twist. He now knew 4 different versions of the stunner. One of them just had a different color beam, it kind of looked like the killing curse, but it was a darker. He could only imagine the havoc of people seeing him using that stunner, green beam flashes and people falling to the ground unmoving. One of the more vicious stunner variants he learned was one that stunned, and then lit the target on fire. A brutal way to go. The 4th one just stunned and sprouted a mushroom on the targets forehead.

There were lots of spells he learned multiples of, some of them were just aesthetic changes, others where some sort of spell combination like the stunner/mushroom. His current personal favorite was the parseltongue fireball with a delayed freeze charm. Of course it would work with the lower spell incendio, but the mid level spell fireball was much more powerful.

Daphne was mildly jealous of the parseltongue spells, so Harry tried not to use them too much when they were together, and he opted to find out a way to do it with normal spells. He figured out that there is 3 possible ways to combine spells. One is just crafting a new spell altogether, which with only rudimentary arthimancy skills this was not an option; you start basic spell creation and manipulation in your NEWT year's, while anything past that is done with an apprenticeship. The second option was to combine 2 preexisting spell formulas, again using arithmancy, but theoretically this is easier, and they would be learning the basic in fifth year. The third way was spell chaining. This is solely a technique when using a wand. It involves combining wand movements, where you match up spells that for example, the first spell ends the same way the next spell begins, and you save yourself a wand movement, and you get the 2 spells out faster. This isn't seen much, as there are not too many useful combinations, but Harry surmised that there is probably a lot more combinations possible if you use older versions of the same spell. As it stands right now it's not used very much in combat and it is seen a little bit in professional dueling. Harry knows that Professor Flitwick was a champion dueler back in his time and figured if they wanted to learn this technique he would be the one to ask, but for right now it was not really important. They both decided they would try to use arithmancy to combine the two spells. First Harry had to continue with his 3rd year learning, it wasn't too hard especially with Daphne to help. But the sooner they were on the same page the better.

Transfiguration was becoming a little easier. They both understood the theory better, Daphne more so. Her basic occlumency helps her focus better on the end result. Consequently, her occlumency is also helping her when they duel also, she is able to keep a more level head and observe her opponent more. All the more reason to learn it in Harry's opinion. They both started learning the theory of transfiguring something and levitating it into the path of spell, it takes a lot of focus. The other possibility is transfiguring an object and using animation charms, but that is seventh year material from 2 classes, needless to say it was beyond him by a big margin. He didn't quite have his dad's natural talent for transfiguration, or his mother's for charms.

If there was one thing that Harry was good it, it was learning spells, and teaching them. He got Daphne to learn the patronus charm after only a few weeks, coincidently it happened after the first ball. Harry had a hunch she was using their first kiss as a happy memory, God knows he was. His stag patronus was dazzling. Her patronus was a tiger, neither of them could figure out why, but there doesn't have to be a reason, but magic usually works in strange ways.

* * *

The third ball came and went, the event even got favorable reviews from the Daily Prophet. There were some new faces. Harry met Blaise Zabini for the first time, decent enough bloke he decided. The Chinese equivalent Minister of Magic came, it was surprising until he found out that he is the father of Su Li the Ravenclaw. No Ron, No Ginny, and No Hermione showed up, and he has only gotten a few letters from any of them. Heck he got more letters from the twins then he did from Ron, and at least their messages weren't just babbling about Quidditch, some of the twins joke ideas were really brilliant.

Eventually the last week of summer was upon them. Harry's spell repertoire was quite impressive, he probably knew more offensive and defensive spells than most Hogwarts seventh years, and probably more than Durmstrang 5th years (if what he read the school was correct, they learn about the dark arts, and while Harry has learned a thing or two, he hasn't studied them like they have.) He is lacking in some of the other spell fields though, but no more so than the rest of the students in his year. He does after all have to learn something during the school year.

Harry finished organizing his mind about a week ago and put up his first mental perimeter defense. It took him a whole week just to find out the best way to do it that suited him. One barrier doesn't do too much, but it will alert you to enemy legillimens in your mind, and Harry had a strong suspicion that both Dumbledore and Snape were legillimens.

Harry did make progress on two fronts with his wandless magic. He managed to light something on fire with 'incendio', and he also managed to light something on fire just by pointing his hand and thinking fire. A little known fact is that it is easier to pick up on wandless magic when you are younger. This has to do with the fact that your magic hasn't matured and attuned itself too much with a wand.

They both did some research on their animals. The knarl was a very cunning and sneaky creature. While it wasn't capable of real offensive, it has nasty defenses. The ashwinder was an interesting creature with an affinity to fire. He read in one of the ancient text that there are two types of ashwinders, the much rarer natural born ashwinder, and the common magically born ashwinder. The natural born ones pack a nasty punch, they can shoot fire out of their mouth, different than dragon breath, it's more like lightning. It has above average venom, but you would probably burst into fire before you ever got bit by one. The natural born ashwinder eggs are different than the magically born ones, they are normal. His second creature was quite a surprise. It is such an obscure creature that finding any substantial bit of information was trying, even with his ancient books. He was right though in that it is a large cat, so he figured that the anatomy is probably pretty similar to any other cat so that's where he started.

Eventually the time came where they were going to go do Diagon Alley to pick up their school supplies. Harry decided to take Daphne there by means of teleportation, she has never seen it before. He made it in 3 minutes, but there was still a lot of room for improvement, nevertheless it was still impressive. They picked up their books, and Harry picked out some extras on battle combat, some auror books, some books on death eater tactics from the 70's. Not to mention a self updating ledger with the current ministry policies.

They restocked their potion supplies, well Harry damn near well bought a quarter of the store. He felt like Snape and that made him feel dirty. They decided to just floo back the castle and spent the last few days just relaxing about either in the Jacuzzi or in the pool.

Harry only had one thing left to do before school starts, and that is to take the two tests for arithmancy and ancient runes, and if all goes well drop divination and his free period. He thought about dropping care of magical creatures, but he thought better of it. It could help him with his animagus studies, some of the creatures are fascinating, and Hagrid is a nice guy. He didn't mind losing his extra free period; it was only because of Ron that he took the bare minimum of courses anyways.

Harry did end up passing both exams with flying colors and got his schedule all sorted out. The first of September finally arrived.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------a/n This chapter is just a massive pile of shit. I realize the story is slow going so far, and there isn't too much dialogue in this chapter. There just isn't too much going on, but the stuff needs to be written as filler and background info. Powerful!Harry just doesn't spring up out of the ground, he has to work for it, and this chapter shows the starts of it.

OH and i finally got around to editing this chapter, I can't believe how poor it was, and still is. i've been in contact with a bunch of beta's but none of them went through with their offers.


	8. The Goblet of Fire

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

Sirius accompanied Harry to the train platform where they met up with Daphne, her younger sister Astoria, and her parents. They talked for a little bit, and then Harry and Daphne boarded the train and found an empty compartment. Shortly after they were joined by Tracey and Blaise, and eventually Neville showed up. He and Harry became pretty good friends during their summer, apparently their families have been friends and allies for centuries. There were still 3 empty seats in the compartment, it was going to be a sort of test to see if his other friends would join them.

About 30 minutes after the train left, the compartment door opened up and Ron and Hermione looked in. Harry spoke up "Hey mate sit down." Ron looked at the three open seats, then at the three Slytherins, and then said "Why you sitting with snakes mate?"

"Not all Slytherins are like Malfoy Ron." Stated calmly

"Prove it."

Harry leaned over and kissed Daphne for about a minute. "How can an 11 year old be evil, or dark? Heck I doubt you know anyone in the house besides Malfoy's goons and the Quidditch team, that is not even a quarter of the house!"

Daphne looked indifferent to the mess. She was used to the Slytherin hating, but it does get ridiculous sometimes and the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry gets way out of hand most of the time.

"Whatever." Ron said grumpily and stalked out.

Harry yelled. "You could at least put the effort in!" Hermione was still standing there unsure and was looking at where Ron stalked off to, but eventually sat down at Harry's urging. They were joined 15 minutes later by two Ravenclaws he met at one of the summer parties, Terry boot and Michael corner. The Patil Twins looked like they wanted to sit down but there were no open seats so they left.

They kept the conversation light for the most part, some Quidditch talk, some talk about the world cup and death eaters. There was some academic talk too, which of course perked Hermione's ears up before she got into her groove. Daphne had a slight smirk on her face when she started and whispered into Harry's ear "Almost every student in this compartment is probably smarter than her, with the exception of Longbottom, and she doesn't even realize it." Harry lifted an eyebrow at this and decided it was going to his goal this year to mellow Hermione out. "We just don't brag and boast about it. I think she is 8th in our year."

They took the carriages up to the great hall and split off to their respective house tables. He sat across from Hermione, and next to Neville, there was an open spot on his left, but Ron didn't sit there. "Stupid git" he thought out loud himself when Ron sat next to Dean and Seamus.

Shortly the firsties came in, the sorting hat sang it's song and sorted them. Dumbledore then stood up and gave the usual announcements.

Twinkling eyes on. "The Forbidden Forest, is of course Forbidden, and Filch has posted the list of the newly updated banned items." Usually he would announce the new teachers at this point, but there was still an empty chair where he assumed the defense teacher would sit.

"It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

"What?" Harry gasped. He looked around at Fred and George, his fellow members of the Quidditch team. They were mouthing soundlessly at Dumbledore, apparently too appalled to speak. Dumbledore went on, "This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy - but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts -"

But at that moment, there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open.

A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, and then began to walk up toward the teachers' table.

A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermione gasped.

The lightning had thrown the man's face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Harry had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man's eyes that made him frightening.

One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye - and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so that all they could see was whiteness.

The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Harry couldn't hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.

The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.

"May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. "Professor Moody."

It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students clapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody's bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him.

Harry was deep in thought, he knew he heard that name somewhere before. Suddenly he exclaimed "aha!" people just looked at him weird. "He wrote a few of the books I've been reading. A few on auror tactics and one on death eater tactics." People just looked at him like he had two heads. "He's a retired Auror, retired after the war, I wonder why he's teaching now?"

"Well he was an auror, so he must know his stuff!"

"Yeah I agree. Looks like he has seen his fair share of combat."

"At this point, we could use a few good defense teachers. Lupin was decent, but Lockhart was a joke and same with Quirrell."

"Amen to that." The conversation slowly drifted off. He vaguely heard Ron talking about how his dad had to bail Moody out of a situation a few days earlier in the day.

Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it.

As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Harry saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.

Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, "we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year."

"You're JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly.

The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.

"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar."

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.

"Er - but maybe this is not the time… no…" said Dumbledore, "where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament… well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.

"The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities - until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued."

"Death toll?" Hermione whispered, looking alarmed. But her anxiety did not seem to be shared by the majority of students in the Hall; many of them were whispering excitedly to one another, and Harry himself was far more interested in hearing about the tournament than in worrying about deaths that had happened hundreds of years ago.

"There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament," Dumbledore continued, "none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger.

"The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money."

"I'm going for it!" Fred Weasley hissed down the table, his face lit with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches. He was not the only person who seemed to be visualizing himself as the Hogwarts champion. At every House table, Harry could see people either gazing raptly at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbors. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more.

"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," he said, "the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age - that is to say, seventeen years or older - will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration.

This" — Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Weasley twins were suddenly looking furious - "is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion." His light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred's and George's mutinous faces. "I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen.

"The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!"

Harry just sat their deep in thought. He had a bad feeling about this whole thing. A really really bad feeling. After the world cup incident, and the lack of attempts on his life, the time is right for a major monkey wrench to be thrown into his life, and he had a strong feeling about this tournament.

Harry had a lot to think about so he went over to Daphne to ease his mind. "Have you heard of this tournament before?"

"Yeah, most purebloods probably have. I don't know too much about it though, other than it hasn't been held in a few hundred years, and people die. I do know that I had a family member that was a champion, about 600 years ago though. He didn't win, but he didn't die either, which I guess is a good thing."

"Yeah" he laughed "otherwise you might not be here today."

The next morning came and he sat in the same setup at the table, and their timetables were quickly passed out. Hermione was surprised that his schedule exactly matched hers. She had a question look but Harry quickly explained. "Studied hard for arithmancy and runes during the summer, and met up with the professors and passed the exams. Then I dropped divination and my free period." She still had a questioning look on her face but still nodded her approval.

Their first class was Herbology and went quickly enough, although dealing with bubotuber pus was a sticky experience. They had Magical Creatures and Hagrid showed them something he called a "Blast-ended Skrewt" which Harry thought he made himself because it looked like an illegal crossbreed of some sort.

They had Double Arithmancy that afternoon. Hermione said it is usually an all house class, as not many people took it. They quickly made their way to it. He immediately spotted Daphne and went over to her and gave her a quick kiss and sat down next to her. Tracey was there along with Blaise. Pansy Parkinson was there much to her displeasure and gave a frown when she saw the kiss. All the Ravenclaws were in the class, only Hufflepuffs were Hannah Abbot and Ernie MacMillan. They were the only two Gryffindors, not many people at all, and still less than a normal class even with all 4 houses. Not much happened in the class, the first few classes were just going to be review.

Dinner approached and Harry saw Malfoy approach Ron with newspaper, apparently something about his dad and Moody. He didn't pay much attention to this. And tried to eat in silence, listening to everyone talk about how awesome Moody's class was.

The next day at breakfast Harry had an Idea. He decided to sit at the Ravenclaw table, and motioned for Daphne to join him. She did without looking back at the Slytherin table. There was some stares from the other table, Snape was frowning, Flitwick looked ecstatic, McGonagall was unreadable, but Dumbledore had twinkling eyes. This was the first he has seen of their relationship. He wasn't invited to any of Sirius Summer Balls, to his displeasure but everyone else's amusement.

They had Moody's class the next day, and everyone was looking forward to it, even if it was with the Slytherins. Harry was actually hoping all his classes were with the Slytherins because of Daphne, but much to Ron's displeasure, Malfoy. Harry was unsure of Malfoy's deal at the present moment. He seemed to have it out for Ron right now instead of him, which suited him well. He wasn't sure if it had anything to do with the fact that he was dating Daphne, but rumor has it that no one has ever dated her before and he was the first, but not for the lack of half the house trying last year. It was probably a mix of Harry getting her, and his new attitude that got the house's approval. Harry has started acting more like a pureblood, but he hasn't really noticed.

Harry arrived at the class and sat next to Daphne of course. Ron seemed to be glued to his new best mates Seamus and Dean.

"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."

They returned the books to their bags, Ron looking excited.

Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled gray hair out of his twisted and scarred face, and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swiveled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered.

"Right then," he said, when the last person had declared themselves present, "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures - you've covered boggarts, Red Caps, hinkypunks, grindylows, Kappas, and werewolves, is that right?"

There was a general murmur of assent.

"But you're behind - very behind - on dealing with curses," said Moody. "So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark -"

"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted out.

Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron; Ron looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled - the first time Harry had seen him do so. The effect was to make his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever, but it was nevertheless good to know that he ever did anything as friendly as smile.

Ron looked deeply relieved.

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago… Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore… One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."

He gave a harsh laugh, and then clapped his gnarled hands together.

"So - straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year.

You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."

Lavender jumped and blushed. She had been showing Parvati her completed horoscope under the desk. Apparently Moody's magical eye could see through solid wood, as well as out of the back of his head.

"So… do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"

Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron's and Hermione's. Harry and Daphne both of course read about them from some of his books, but didn't raise their hands.

Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender.

"Er," said Ron tentatively, "my dad told me about one… Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"

"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."

Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it.

Harry felt Ron recoil slightly next to him - Ron hated spiders. Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"

The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.

Everyone was laughing - everyone except Harry, Daphne, and Moody.

"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"

The laughter died away almost instantly.

"Total control," said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats…"

Ron gave an involuntary shudder.

"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody, and Harry knew he was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.

"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked, and everyone jumped.

Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.

"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

Hermione's hand flew into the air again and so, to Harry's slight surprise, did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was Herbology which was easily his best subject. Neville looked surprised at his own daring.

"Yes?" said Moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on Neville.

"There's one - the Cruciatus Curse," said Neville in a small but distinct voice.

Moody was looking very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes.

"Your name's Longbottom?" he said, his magical eye swooping down to check the register again.

Neville nodded nervously, but Moody made no further inquiries. Turning back to the class at large, he reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.

"The Cruciatus Curse," said Moody. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"

The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula. Abandoning all pretense, Ron pushed his chair backward, as far away from Moody's desk as possible. Moody raised his wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"

At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but Harry was sure that if it could have given voice, it would have been screaming.

Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently - "Stop it!" Hermione said shrilly.

Harry looked around at her. She was looking, not at the spider, but at Neville, and Harry, following her gaze, saw that Neville's hands were clenched upon the desk in front of him, his knuckles white, his eyes wide and horrified. Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.

"Reducio," Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its proper size. He put it back into the jar.

"Pain," said Moody softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse… That one was very popular once too.

"Right… anyone know any others?"

Harry looked around. From the looks on everyone's faces, he guessed they were all wondering what was going to happen to the last spider. Hermione's hand shook slightly as, for the third time, she raised it into the air.

"Yes?" said Moody, looking at her.

"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered.

Several people looked uneasily around at her, including Ron.

"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra… the Killing Curse."

He put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.

Moody raised his wand, and Harry felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.

"Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared.

There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air - instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries; Ron had thrown himself backward and almost toppled off his seat as the spider skidded toward him.

Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor.

"Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me."

Harry put up his meager occlumency shield as Moody's eyes (both of them) looked into his own. He could feel everyone else looking around at him too. Harry stared at the blank blackboard as though fascinated by it, but not really seeing it at all…

So that was how his parents had died… exactly like that spider.

Had they been unblemished and unmarked too? Had they simply seen the flash of green light and heard the rush of speeding death, before life was wiped from their bodies?

Harry had been picturing his parents' deaths over and over again for three years now, ever since he'd found out they had been murdered, ever since he'd found out what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had killed Harry's father first. How James Potter had tried to hold him off, while he shouted at his wife to take Harry and run… Voldemort had advanced on Lily Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry… how she had begged him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son… and so Voldemort had murdered her too, before turning his wand on Harry.

Harry knew these details because he had heard his parents' voices when he had fought the dementors last year - for that was the terrible power of the dementors: to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown, powerless, in their own despair.

Moody was speaking again, from a great distance, it seemed to Harry. With a massive effort, he pulled himself back to the present and listened to what Moody was saying.

Harry had a gut feeling that this was how his parents met their end, but he never saw the curse in action before, and it sent shivers down his spine. To hear the raw truth hurt much more than he thought it would.

"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it - you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. Harry had a distinct feeling he could do more than that, he could probably blow him straight through the wall with his custom wand.

"But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it." Moody continued.

"Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to know. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he roared, and the whole class jumped again.

"Now… those three curses - Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus - are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's what I've got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills… copy this down…"

They spent the rest of the lesson taking notes on each of the Unforgivable Curses. No one spoke until the bell rang - but when Moody had dismissed them and they had left the classroom, a torrent of talk burst forth. Most people were discussing the curses in awed voices –

The left the room and they saw Moody walk over to Neville and invited him into his office for tea. The crucio demonstration really rattled him.

Back at the great hall for lunch, Harry and Daphne decided to sit at the Hufflepuff table this time, which again drew the same looks as last time, but they ignored it. They decided they were going to sit at a different table each day, Harry would even go to the Slytherin table even if he knew they wouldn't probably attack him.

They had transfiguration after lunch with the 'puffs. They mostly worked on theory, but Harry did get the transfiguration correct the first time he tried it at the end of class, much to Hermione's displeasure, and McGonagall's glee, and got 10 points.

They had charms the next class, and it was similar to transfiguration. Harry was quicker than Hermione once again. She was curious to how Harry improved so much during the summer, but offered no explanation other than "you were invited to the castle" which she just simply huffed. To her defense though Harry already learned the spell during the summer so he didn't have to put much effort into it. In fact he could probably cast it silently, which he did after a few minutes which got a few looks of awe and another 10 points from Flitwick.

Ancient runes was pretty boring. They don't start doing more involved projects until their OWL year. Right now they mostly just interpret runes sets to figure out their purpose. A lot of translation and theorizing how the runes are interacting with each other.

Potions class was dreadful as usual. Harry once again paired with Daphne, and was again counting his blessing for being paired with the Slytherins for nearly every course. He was the only one though, but he didn't care. His potion came out at O quality, but he would be happy of if he got an EE. Of course Snape figured it was Daphne who helped him to do good, but Harry didn't care enough to argue back. Seeing that he wasn't going to get a rise out of Harry, he did the next best thing and got a rise out of Ron, who proceeded to get a detention.

Eventually the days started to go by in a blur. The first time Harry sat and the Slytherin table there was a pretty big uproar, but after doing it a half dozen more times they stopped caring. Harry barely talked with Ron anymore, and it certainly wasn't his fault. Eventually in one of the defense classes Moody announced that he was going to be performing the Imperious Curse on the whole class one at time, to teach them the effects and if they have enough willpower to throw the curse off.

"But - but you said it's illegal, Professor," said Hermione uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. "You said - to use it against another human was -"

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto Hermione and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. "If you'd rather learn the hard way - when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely - fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."

He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Hermione went very pink and muttered something about not meaning that she wanted to leave. Harry smiled to himself, he knew Hermione would rather eat bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Harry watched as, one by one, his classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Dean Thomas hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem. Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel.

Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.

"Potter," Moody growled, "you next."

Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, "Imperio!"

It was the most wonderful feeling. Harry felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in his head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. He stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching him.

And then he heard Mad-Eye Moody's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his empty brain: Jump onto the desk… jump onto the desk…

Harry bent his knees obediently, preparing to spring.

Jump onto the desk…

Why, though? Another voice had awoken in the back of his brain. Stupid thing to do, really, said the voice.

Jump onto the desk…

No, I don't think I will, thanks, said the other voice, a little more firmly… no, I don't really want to.

Jump! NOW!

Harry just stood there, not moving.

"Now, that's more like it!" growled Moody's voice, and suddenly, Harry felt the empty, echoing feeling in his head disappear.

"Look at that, you lot… Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We'll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention - watch his eyes, that's where you see it - very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!"

Next was Daphne's turn, when she stood up he saw a hint of mischief in her eyes. He deduced that with his willpower and basic occlumency shields he was able to through off the curse completely, Daphne should have just an easy time.

"Greengrass you're up. Imperio!"

She turned toward Harry and started sucking on one of her fingers, and started grinding on his leg suggestively. She started giving him a dance. She placed one leg on the chair between Harry's legs and started to lift up her robe to show off her leg. She started feeling one of her breasts while stroking her leg suggestively. Harry was enjoying the show with both an amused expression and a blush. The rest of the class either had their jaws hanging open or giggling.

Moody dropped the curse but Daphne didn't stop.

"Miss Greengrass you can stop now…"

"Oh sorry."

"You weren't affected by the curse at all were you?"

"No sir" she said with a huge grin and a blush on her face.

"Well uh, thanks for the show class dismissed!" Mood stammered out quickly.

Harry and Daphne kissed for a few moments while giggling like school girls. "That was brilliant."

"I hope you enjoyed it."

"I did, but I would rather not have to share you with the class. All the girls look envious and all the guys were jealous." He said with a laugh. "I think I saw a hint of jealousy on some of the girls face's too."

Eventually an announcement was put up saying that the Delegations from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons would be arriving on October 30th at 6 PM. It wasn't too long before the day eventually came and the whole school was on the castle steps waiting for them to show up.

Eventually people started pointing at the sky and a giant carriage with giant flying horses was seen. Someone said something about it being the Beauxbatons. The giant house/carriage landed, and the first person who walked out was a giant of a lady, literally, who was close to Hagrid in height. Dumbledore walked up to here and greeted her as Headmistress Maxime.

Behind her were a dozen boys and girls, all in light blue clothing that looked to be made of silk, and Harry could tell they were all freezing their asses of, he laughed to himself. They decided to warm up inside the castle instead of waiting for Durmstrang to arrive, which they did about 15 minutes later.

The first signs of them arriving were some kids started to point at the lake, where you could see bubbles appearing. Eventually a mast could be seen, then some sails, and eventually there was a whole ship. People in fur outfits could be seen on the deck, and eventually a walkway was erected that led to the shore. Eventually they walked down the plank. The man in front was clearly the headmaster. They all looked eastern European, maybe even Russian. Harry heard Ron yet out "Holy shit it's Viktor Krum!" This got the crowd going and Harry just groaned. He could see Viktor next to the man addressed as Headmaster Karkaroff. Krum didn't look happy at all, in fact it looked like he just didn't like the attention, he could certainly sympathize with that. Karkaroff looked like a right 'ole bastard, probably a dark wizard, heck they learn the dark arts in the schools so that wouldn't be surprising. "As long as they don't serve Voldemort, I don't care" he thought to himself. He would reserve judgment.

They made their way inside the great hall for a welcoming feast. The Durmstrang students sat at the Slytherin table. The Beauxbatons sat at the Ravenclaw table. Harry and Daphne sat with their friends in the 'puffs. Harry was sizing up the other students, they were all definitely older than him. Harry saw a lot of the boys oogling at some of the French girls. Ron in particular was staring wide mouth at a girl who must have some veela blood in here. She had flowing silver hair and would be pretty if he didn't have a girlfriend, and Daphne was better looking than her (in his unbiased opinion), and comparing her against a partial veela is saying a lot.

Dumbledore brought out the Goblet of Fire, the method used to choose the contestants for the tournament. Dumbledore put up an age identifying ward that made it so no one under 17 could enter. Fred and George were already plotting on how to get by. Harry already had a bad feeling once again about this. Dumbledore explained that names would be drawn exactly one day from that moment on. The judges were also introduced; Barty Crouch Sr. and Ludo Bagman, along with the 3 school heads. Crouch had a smile on, that was clearly faked and strained. Bagman was positively beaming though.

The castle was buzzing for the whole rest of the night. The foreign delegations were staying in their respective vessels. The next day eventually came. There were three reasons he was dreading the day. First off was it was Halloween, the day his parents were murdered, 13 years ago. Second off is that something bad always happens to him on Halloween. Troll attack, the first basilisk attack, and dementors. Third, although it ties in with the second one, was that the champions were being chosen today. Harry tried to create as many alibis as possible, he spent as much time outside as possible, otherwise he was in the library working on ancient runes.

Author's note; Quite a bit of this came from GoF, my apologies


	9. The First Task

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

This is chapter 9. I tried to incorporate some of the reviewer's suggestions. Hermione plays a more active role in this chapter, and there is a lot more dialogue. If someone can explain the process of getting a Beta reader it would be appreciated. This chapter is the announcing of the champions all the way through the first task.

Harry was sitting at the Gryffindor table this time for the choosing of the champions. He didn't look happy at all; the moment of truth finally arrived.

The flames in the Goblet light up brightly for a second and spit out a piece of paper. Dumbledore caught it and announced;

"The champion for Durmstrang," he read, in a strong, clear voice, "will be Viktor Krum."

There was a lot of murmuring, but there was no real surprise.

The clapping and chatting died down. Now everyone's attention was focused again on the goblet, which, seconds later, turned red once more. A second piece of parchment shot out of it, propelled by the flames.

"The champion for Beauxbatons," announced Dumbledore "is Fleur Delacour!"

Harry watched as the male population's heads all followed her as she walked through the door to the meeting area.

Next was the moment everyone in Hogwarts was waiting for. The Goblet turned red once more; sparks showered out of it; the tongue of flame shot high into the air, and from its tip Dumbledore pulled the third piece of parchment.

"The Hogwarts champion," he called, "is Cedric Diggory!"

There was loud cheering coming over from Hufflepuff table, and Harry was counting his blessings.

Much to his dread and dismay, the goblet lit up for a fourth time, and Harry was already cursing the world. Professor Moody looked like he had no care at all in the world and kept on eating with vigor.

Dumbledore was about to get started into a speech when he hear the flames roar up once more, and he looked shocked as the Goblet spit out a 4th piece of paper. Not a soul was talking in the room, eyes were all fixed on Dumbledore. Harry already knew what the paper was going to say, and was mentally preparing himself for the inevitable. Dumbledore grabbed the piece of paper out of the air. He stared at it in disbelief for about 10 seconds before clearing his throat and announcing "Harry Potter"

Harry immediately jumped off his bench smashed his plate and yelled "God FUCKING damnit you got to be kidding me!" "Whoever the FUCK put my name in that cup is going to pay!" followed by a general outrage from the crowd and nasty glares sent his way.

Dumbledore just looked on impassively, he was trying to probe Harry's mind, but Harry's extreme anger made it impossible. "You mean to tell me you did not put your name in?"

"Of course not! And I'll gladly take Veritaserum to prove it!"

Snape of course had something to say here "The arrogant brat! I say we do it." Naturally Snape caries Veritaserum on him at all times, it is in his back left pouch on his batman multipurpose belt, right next to his anal lube of course. The foreign Headmasters readily agreed to it, and the Ministry officials nodded their approval. "Very well, come up here Harry."

Harry walked up and got a few drops put on his tongue. Snape delegated himself to do the questioning.

"What is your name?"

"Harry James Potter"

"It's working. Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?"

"No." There was a lot of talking here but Snape kept questioning.

"Do you know who did?"

"No, but my guess would be it is another plot by Voldemort." The whole room gasped. Dumbledore motioned for him to stop the interrogation but he kept going.

"Do you have any theories on how someone could do this?"

"Of course, quite a few to be honest."

"First would be simple and have someone else submit your name. A problem arises that if you wanted your name to be guaranteed then you have to put your name under a 4th school. Of course there is also a problem of having to use my actual written signature. I know for a fact I have not given anyone my signature, and I'm pretty sure all my school papers are intact, the ones in my possession anyways. That only leaves a small amount of possibilities. It means I was careless, a possibility, or a teacher submitted my name by tearing my signature off an essay or homework!" He can tell he astounded everyone with his logic, but he kept going.

"Of course that is how someone could submit someone else's name. Submitting your own name, underage of course, was simpler. Most obvious possibility, outside of convincing an older student to do it, or a house elf… was levitating your paper over the ageline and into the goblet." You could hear a pin drop with the silence in the hall at the revelation, and the simplicity of it. "Another option would be the summoning spell. While I'm sure you couldn't summon the Goblet, you could summon the pedestal it's on." Dumbledore looked aghast at what Harry was revealing. "Of course there was also the direct approach of deactivating the ward, or resetting the ward to a younger age, or just temporarily overriding it. I'm sure I could think of a few more ways if you want…"

"That is quite alright Harry, and that was very enlightening, I didn't think of the possibilities, and yet that you figured all this out and yet didn't enter your name in astounding, and shows great character. 50 points to Gryffindor. Hopefully with your insightful information we will be able to find out who purposefully put your life in danger. There is a small problem though. The Magic of the cup is equivalent to a magically binding contract, and as such you do have to complete, otherwise the consequences of breaking the contract could be nasty, from losing your magic to death." He said this with no twinkle in his eye, and motioned for him to follow the rest of the judges to go into the waiting chamber.

Harry nodded his head in defeat, he was sure that was the case anyways. He looked around a room and saw all the shocked faces, his eyes briefly flicked over to Moody, who was still eating like nothing was going on, as that pas part of his persona, but Harry could tell it was a little overdone, and filed it under the suspicious category. After all Harry couldn't think of to many people who would do this to him; Snape, however possible, probably didn't do it, or the new guy. And besides if whoever the culprit is thinks he can off him that easily, they got another thing coming.

He's sure the other 3 champions are wondering what is taking so long. The group finally walked into the chamber, and you could almost taste the nasty looks the other contestants were giving Harry when they saw him enter.

Dumbledore decided to take control of the situation early. "My dears, hear me out for a minute. Harry here, had his name come out of the fire. Harry, naturally, was very upset at this." Harry scoffed at this, upset is an understatement, only his occlumency shields prevented accidental magic from blowing up the table, but that didn't stop him from being severely pissed off. "Harry made it very clear that he didn't put his name in the goblet and didn't know who did, and he proved it under truth serum. Harry even provided some theories on how his name got in the Goblet. No matter the case, there seems someone with malicious intent here, as the goblet is a magically sealed contract. Harry must compete as a fourth champion."

"But Dumble- "

Dumbledore but up his hand, quickly cutting them off.

"Breaking the contract would turn Harry into a squib at best, and a puddle of goo at worst." He said with no twinkle at all. At this the three headmasters started arguing amongst each other in hushed whispers.

Harry heard snippets of conversation, "To young…" "No choice…" "Dark Lord…?" "leaving…!"

Harry tried to act friendly and introduced himself to the other contestants, who all just shook his hand firmly but didn't offer any emotion or greetings.

"Empty threat, Karkaroff," growled a voice from near the door. "You can't leave your champion now. He's got to compete. They've all got to compete. Binding magical contract, like Dumbledore said. Convenient, eh?"

Moody had just entered the room. He limped toward the fire, and with every right step he took, there was a loud clunk.

"Convenient?" said Karkaroff. "I'm afraid I don't understand you, Moody." Harry could tell he was trying to sound disdainful, as though what Moody was saying was barely worth his notice, but his hands gave him away; they had balled themselves into fists.

"Don't you?" said Moody quietly. "It's very simple, Karkaroff. Someone put Potter's name in that goblet knowing he'd have to compete if it came out."

Harry's eyebrow rose. They already established the last fact, but Moody said it like he truly wasn't paying attention. However before Moody could continue Dumbledore rose his hand once more and got silence. "Mr. Crouch if you please. Explain to the champions the instructions for the first task."

"Ah yes. The first task is designed to test your daring, so we are not going to be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard… very important. The first task will take place on November the twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges. The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests."

Dumbledore nodded his head "Ah and one more thing, there is a small publicity stunt tomorrow, called the weighing of the wands. You will be exempt from class during that time." With that he bid the champions good night.

Harry went back in the hall where a lot of the students were still gathered. He pulled Daphne over to the Gryffindor table where Hermione was. He thought about pulling Ron over too but the look he was giving was more than enough of a deterrent.

"I need to make a game plan and I need your guys help. You are the two smartest witches I know."

They both nodded agreement, but Hermione didn't look like she liked sharing her smartest witch title.

"Hermione I need you to look up the past Triwizard Tournaments. Compare the events against each other, see if the first events have any similar trends, stuff like that. If we can figure out what I'm up against, all the better."

"I know exactly where to look." Was all Hermione said as she rushed off immediately to the library. He doubt he would see her at all until the next day. There is no doubt in his mind that Hermione is the best researcher in the school.

"Daphne, I'm going to have to start training again, and I want you to join me, just like the summer.

"I'd love to Harry. It's a shame we can't continue it as much as we would like as classes tend to get in the way. I really missed all the time we spent together like that."

"Yeah, me too. And now we have a reason to start it back up again. We need a secure spot for spell training, and I can only think of one location; The Chamber of Secrets. The main chamber is at least a 100 foot wide square so there is more than enough room. The room needs to be cleaned up a little, as the basilisk did some damage. However the room is warded all to hell against magical damage so there is no chance of us getting buried alive."

"Also I need to start working out physically again. I'm thinking we meet up outside before breakfast to go jogging around the lake, I suppose we could swim too. We can do the spell training during our free period, or after dinner. We can start the day after tomorrow."

"Sounds like you have already thought of this a lot." She said with a small smile.

"Well to be honest I half expected my name to be coming out of that Goblet. My intuition is usually spot on, so I've been preparing mentally.

The next morning the three huddled together at the end of the table going over the research Hermione dug up.

"Well, as you guessed, the tournaments do follow a trend. The first task has always been combating a dangerous magical animal that is usually guarding a clue for the second task. Some of the past events had animals such as acromantula's, erumpents, graphorns and even dragons on occasion. Of course there was the one case where they got a chimaera, but all the champions died… manticores are way too dangerous as well. Thankfully you probably don't have to worry about facing a basilisk either…" she said this with an uncharacteristic laugh.

"Ha Ha, but at least I know how to kill one now"

"True. My guess would be that they are going to be using a creature that the crowd will love. This is after all the first tournament held in a long time and they want it to be memorable.

Daphne agreed. "I see a few possible candidates. Not to mention that it looks like they have used groups of animals in the past, so you could be facing something like 3 griffins. My guess would be a wyvern, that's what I would choose if I was designing the task. However I would have to say acromantulas are a good bet, as there is a herd of them right here at Hogwarts. However I wouldn't put them past them to use dragons. Big, flashy, makes for a good show. However they can be extremely dangerous as well. My guess is that you don't have to defeat the animal, just get past it, as a lot of the flashy creatures take many full grown skilled wizards to control. I could also imagine something like an occamy being used. They get fairy large and are vicious and flashy."

"I hope it's an occamy. It's a snake so it would be a quick victory for me"

"Yeah it would, but I'm sure if it was an occamy they are changing it now that your name came out of the cup." Hermione said. "I would pretty much just study all the aggressive large creatures that don't eat villages whole." Harry nodded in acceptance.

"I guess it might be to early to worry about the second task yet, but generally it is some sort of recovery mission, you have to rescue the thing that means the most to you." Harry turned towards Daphne, who just blushed in response. "You get an hour for the task. I suppose it could take place in the mountains, but most likely it will be the Forbidden Forest."

"Third task always some sort of general knowledge task in the form of an obstacle course where you get pitted against different challenges, while racing against the other champions. The winner is the first person to reach the Triwizard Cup at the end.

Harry looked deep in thought. "Well at least we have a general idea of what's coming up. I should start training as soon as possible; I only got 3 weeks, and hopefully I can discover which animal I have to be fighting before then.

Hermione perked up at the mention of training. "That's dangerous! Can I join you? I mean, I've got loads of knowledge on the theories, but I never get a chance to practice a lot of the spells I read up on…" she said with an unsure but excited look.

Harry looked over towards Daphne for an answer. "Sure, I suppose we could use a fresh wand. You have to promise to never reveal anything that happens down there."

"Down where?"

"In the chamber of secrets of course."

With that revelation they went off toward class, potions. After the class Snape held Harry, and motioned for the two witches to wait for him in the hall.

"I must admit Potter, you got balls for that little stunt you pulled yesterday. Not event your arrogant dad would put on vulgar display such as that."

"Is there a point to this?"

Snape got a serious look on his face. "Have you been stealing boomslang skin from my private cupboard?"

"Of course not, I'm sure I have my own supply at home if I ever needed it." Snape raised an eyebrow at the fact that the brat actually had his own potion ingredients at his house.

"Do you know what it is used for then?" Snape drawled.

"Well the first thing that came to my mind is Polyjuice potion."

"Interesting Potter how you came up with that." He seemed in deep in thought for a few moments. "That answer does make be believe you are telling the truth about the stealing. However the Polyjuice idea is interesting, and someone putting your name in the Goblet…yes I see where this is going. This needs to be looked into more..." Snape seemed to be more talking to himself at this point so Harry slipped out quietly.

Harry talked with the two girls about the conversation he just had, and about their new mystery. As if worry about the tournament wasn't enough, he has to get to the bottom of who the guilty party is who is trying to get him killed.

A quick lunch later and Harry got the message to go to one of the first floor classrooms for the weighing of the wands.

Harry entered and saw all 5 judges, plus a reporter and photographer standing around. There were 4 seats for the champions on one wall, the other 3 were already there. He also noticed Ollivander lurking about in a shadowed corner.

"Ah, the 4th champion is here, let us begin." Dumbledore said in his best Marlon Brando impersonation.

"May I introduce Mr. Ollivander?" said Dumbledore, taking his place at the judges' table and talking to the champions. "He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament."

"Mademoiselle Delacour, could we have you first, please?" said Mr. Ollivander, stepping into the empty space in the middle of the room.

Fleur Delacour swept over to Mr. Ollivander and handed him her wand.

"Hmm…" he said.

He twirled the wand between his long fingers like a baton and it emitted a number of pink and gold sparks. Then he held it chose to his eyes and examined it carefully.

"Yes," he said quietly, "nine and a half inches… inflexible… rosewood… and containing… dear me…"

"An 'air from ze 'ead of a veela," said Fleur. "One of my grandmuzzer's."

"Yes," said Mr. Ollivander, "yes, I've never used veela hair myself, of course. I find it makes for rather temperamental wands… however, to each his own, and if this suits you…"

Harry wasn't paying attention at all, he was trying not to throw up at the hungry look the reporter kept giving him, like he was some sort of juicy story that was dying to be feasted on and have his life spilled all over the newspaper. He completely missed Cedric's and Viktor's turn.

"Mr. Potter, if you please."

Harry took out both of his wands and placed them on the table.

"What is this, you can't have 2 wands, that is illegal."

"Well technically the rules said that we will be armed with nothing more than our _wands,_ meaning plural."

"Well I supposed it could be interpreted that way, but I must insist."

"Fine whatever," he said and pocketed his holly wand. He thought about just snapping it there, but a backup wand was always useful.

Ollivander picked up the wand and did his normal behavior. "Curious, I did not make this wand, as I suspected since I have only sold you one wand. This is a very fine piece of craftsmanship if I do say so myself. I remember seeing a few wands like this, years back during the Grindelwald era…What's this 2 cores? I would never…Hmm one seems to be some sort of dragon scale, I would say Hebridean Black but I don't think so."

"Storm dragon scale, ancient ancestor of the Hebridean Black"

"Marvelous, and this second one…my my, aren't we full of surprises, another core I can't identify! I would say it is dragon heartstring, but it looks like none I have seen."

"Nundu heartstring." Harry said emotionlessly. He did enjoy Dumbledore's reaction though; his eyebrows disappeared inside his hat. The other champions all looked embarrassed by their wands, and Ollivander was slightly withdrawn.

Ollivander gave a quick wave of the wand he attempted to shoot a small fountain of wine out the end, but what he got was a geyser, and it hit Dumbledore right in this chest, and not expecting it he crashed to the floor. Harry couldn't hold his emotions back and was cracking up laughing, the other champions and foreign judges had smiles on their face too. Ollivander helped the man back up with a lot of apologies.

"Well here is your wand young man, seems to be in good working order I must say."

At this point it was interview time, but Harry just walked out much to the reporters dismay. Harry did turn around real quick with his wand and mentally said "Obliviate". He couldn't let that reporter leak any information about his wand.

The next day Harry brought Hermione and Daphne down into the chamber of secrets. The first thing they did was fix up the hallway. They started off by vanishing all the dead animal skeletons, and all the muck that accumulated. Harry got to work by reinforcing the walls and fixing the collapsed roof. Not surprisingly the repair charm wasn't enough, so he had to use a stoneforging spell. He got it out of a stone masonry book, surprisingly it was one of the most useful spellbooks he read. It wasn't from his collection though, he got it from the construction firm who built his home. It had a lot of useful spells, and although they were named like "stone cutting" "stone cleaving" "stone gouging" they had a lot of other uses too. The stoneforging spell is different than its metalforging brother however. The stoneforging spell was designed specifically for repairing castle walls, so it was perfect for the job.

Hermione was naturally curious at his use of a spell she hasn't seen before, but she didn't say anything. She was more content to watch and see what other new spells he knew, and she was going to be in for a big surprise.

Fixing up the chamber took the better part of a whole week, they had classes naturally so they could only spend a few hours a day working on it. It was a lot of tedious work, as the place was a mess, which is to be expected of something that hasn't been cleaned for over 1000 years.

Their spell training started slow at first, they didn't want Hermione to feel left out, but it was being counterproductive so he got another idea.

"Let's get Neville down here to train with us." Harry stated out of the blue. Hermione looked skeptical, but Daphne nodded in agreement. "That way everyone can have a partner, and since you both are behind, it would be easier for you to catch up to us. I know the kid is very shy, he just has a confidence problem. My family has been friends with his family for ages and I would like to rekindle that, the kid has potential."

The next day the asked Neville, who readily agreed, he even joined in on the physical training around the lake. Hermione, however didn't oblige. Neville turned out to be pretty decent, once you got him confident enough by encouraging him.

Harry and Daphne spent most of their time going over an elemental spell book. Elemental spells are different than normal spells, but can be used in the same manner. Elemental spells draw on both the magic of the caster and the magic of nature and the earth itself. Elemental spells are known to very few. Dumbledore probably knows a couple, and more than likely Nicolas Flamel does. Other than that you would have to look for specific users like druids and such, which are nonexistent in Britain. Luckily and Unluckily for Harry there is a ton of books on the subject, the lucky part being that the books are extremely rare, and their knowledge has been mostly lost. Unluckily for him the vast majority Harry can't understand, either because they are in a different, old language, or they are just too advanced. However there were a few books that he was able to make use of, and he readily ate them up.

There was only a week left until the first task when he caught an unexpected break, but it did raise his suspicions even more. At the end of his defense class, Moody held him back.

"Have any luck with the first task yet Potter?"

"E,r well I've narrowed it down to either acromantulas, erumpents, occamy, manticore, graphorn, or dragons..."

"Ah there you go boy, dragons indeed!"

"Really?" Harry said feigning surprise. Looks like Daphne was right with her idea of "Big and Flashy is what the crowd will want to see".

"Yeah, there is one for each of you, there's even a vicious Hungarian Horntail." Moody said this with a smile.

"Why are you telling me this."

"Well I feel obliged to help you seeing how someone else got you into this mess. So do you have any idea on how to get past it?"

"Well…no sir, doesn't a dragon usually take a dozen wizards to take down?" Harry tried to play this innocently. The guy was highly suspicious, and he didn't want to give anything away.

"Well I suggest playing to your strengths."

"…I'm not following."

"Flying of course. Summon your broom and you're good to go." He said this and turned to hobble off.

Harry scoffed at the idea. He may be fast but dragons have great reflexes. Plus they can breathe fire, his broom is wood and humans don't take kindly to fire either. Not to mention that dragons can fly also, and he wasn't sure that he could out fly a dragon either, even with the best broom on the market. He didn't like the mental of picture of him being snatched up inside a dragon mouth. No, flying was definitely out of the question.

Harry went up to the great hall for mealtime and ran into Ron for the first time right outside the door.

"Watch where you are going scarhead!" He yelled.

"What the fuck is your problem Ron, you've been stiffing me since the summer!"

"Your girlfriend is a slutty snake!" He bellowed

"Is that it? I think you're the only person in the school, besides your sister, who disapproves of her. Heck even Malfoy gave me credit. And I have half a mind to pummel you to the ground for that slutty comment, that is just plain rude. "

"Ha! I thought you are above consorting with the snakes! Everyone knows they are all dark wizards and whores."

"Stop being such a bigot! You can't base a whole house based on the few vocal members. You'll find that the nonvocal ones are quite nice once you get to know them. You're just a jealous asshole!"

"Whatever traitor." He said and sulked off. Ron was thinking of mentioning something about the Goblet incident but his mind was so clouded he forgot to mention it.

Harry just sighed and walked to the table and joined his friends. He had a feeling that most of the great hall just heard their argument but he didn't find himself caring. Most of the teachers approved of the new interhouse relations.

The last week before the task went really slow, which could be a good thing, as Harry was putting a lot of time into his strategy. Hermione had her own idea, But Harry's and Daphne was far better in the flashy, crowd awing department. Hermione just hrumphed, she just thought her way was more logical and efficient. Harry planned on going way overboard.

The day finally came. Harry was oddly calm as he was taking in the surrounding around him. He noticed quite a few students had on badges that read "POTTER STINKS" including both Ron and Malfoy. Of course Malfoy had one as it was his idea, but Ron was just being a jealous git.

Harry made his way down to the tent a few minutes before start time.

He noticed all the champions were nervous. Bagman was going to be doing the honors of announcing, but first he addressed the members inside the tent.

"Your task is to recover the golden egg from the creature inside this bag." He said holding up the bag.

"There are 4 creatures in here, all different and one for each of you. Ladies first."

Fleur reached in and pulled out a model of a welsh green with the number 2 around its neck. She didn't look surprised at the fact they were fighting dragons. Neither did Krum. Cedric did look surprised, but he managed to not gasp out loud. Krum reached in and pulled out a Chinese Fireball with a 3. Cedric pulled out the Swedish shortsnout with the number one. Harry picked out the last; the Hungarian horntail with the number 4. Perfect, he got the most dangerous dragon out of the lot, and he gets to go last to put on the best show. Harry felt sorry for Cedric. He was the only champion who didn't know what was coming. And not to mention he gets to go first. It's a shame, Cedric was a decent enough bloke, and he is fairly talented.

Bagman went out and a few minutes later after the judges were introduced, the task officially started when "CEDRIC" was called out to start his task. The kid is usually a pasty white, but he looked sickly green when he exited the tent.

The champions were not allowed to watch, they could only hear the announcer and crowd, and it sounded like a brutal battle. Eventually nearly 30 minutes later Cedric was successful with his task. It sounded like he needed some major medical care.

Next up was Fleur, and she was quicker in her task, about 15 minutes. He managed to catch what the announcer said she was doing. She had attempted to hypnotize the dragon to put it asleep. She managed it but barely, and not without injury.

Krum was up next, and he got a very large cheer from the crowd. He was also done about 15 minutes later. It sounded like the judges were most impressed with him so far. Harry heard his own name called a few minutes later.

Harry walked out of the champions tent, in his full basilisk battle gear regalia and he saw the large audience that was gathered for the first time. He didn't know if they were cheering for him, or just cheering in general. He sized up the nasty dragon and put his plan into motion. First things first.

He took out his custom wand and yelled out "LEVITAS TUTILAS." Sparks of blue energy sprung up out of the ground and surrounded harry, forming a sort of aura. The purpose of the spell was to give him a temporary power boost by drawing ambient magic from the surroundings. Of course such power comes a price, and he would be feeling the effects later on in the form of magical exhaustion, but that wouldn't be a problem since what he has planned would probably exhaust him anyways. Many people would think it was a dark spell, and they would be wrong. It was an elemental spell he found in a Greek spellbook, and he found a usable translation for it in the margin of the book. Thankfully the owner – Salazar, liked to make notes in his books, otherwise he would just have to do his best to follow wand diagrams and interpret the gruesome photos of the spell effects.

"What an impressive looking spell!" was all Bagman announced.

He went to work blasting the rocks around the area into sizable chunks using stone cutting, cleaving, and gouging spells. He made quick work and quickly had a dozen sizable boulders unearthed in under a minute. His wand arm was a blur of motion. He was starting to feel a little winded from the amount of spells he cast, but the hardest part was yet to come.

"What is the young man doing? Whatever he has planned looks impressive!"

Harry started a short chant, this time it was in Greek. He didn't know the language that well, other than limited use in ancient runes, and his spell research, but he memorized this chant specifically for this use. Roughly translated the spell was "From the earth I am born, from the earth I am formed." It was an incantation that animates rock. Essentially he created a rock golem. Although he probably could of summoned a rock elemental, that would have been an enormous feat and completely drained his magical core, and plus it would of took an hour to complete the summon. Luckily for him the golem would suffice, and the spell was a lot easier, even if it was still beyond NEWT level. Not that many people even know of the existence of pure elemental spells, although he has already used two of them.

The golem was about 25 feet tall, still slightly shorter than the dragon, but it grappled with the strong creature. The 2 creatures were even in strength, but the dragon would eventually win, even if its flame breath did nothing immediately, it would eventually turn it brittle.

"WOW what an exciting turn of events. It looks like he has animated some sort of rock monster to fight the dragon!"

The golem punched the dragon, but its limber neck bent with the blow. The dragon took flight and blew its breath over the golem, but there was no physical damage. The golem grabbed the dragon's tail in midswing and threw the dragon into the ground about 50 feet away and shambled after it.

The dragon swung its tail when the golem got close, and this time made contact with one of the golem's arms, and shattered it off. The golem shrugged it off, but it was at a disadvantage now. The golem's arm would slowly piece itself back together if you gave it a few minutes, but the golem wouldn't last until then.

The crowd was cheering very loud at the fight. Harry would love to watch them fight it out a little more, but the golem was slowly losing. He wasn't planning on getting the vicious horntail, although it wasn't surprising with his luck. Any other dragon and the golem would probably win.

Harry decided to unleash one more of his elemental spells, this one was an offensive spell and it would be the first time he would use it. He was hoping that the golem would be good enough to subdue the dragon, but he had multiple backup plans to get the egg.

Harry pointed his wand up in the air, and a short incantation later Harry's wand began to glow. After about 15 seconds the glow shot out about 100 feet above the ground and a lightning bolt arced from the air and hit the dragon. The sonic boom was very loud, and it looked like all the birds flew from the trees in the forest.

The dragon collapsed onto the ground. It wasn't dead, just extremely frazzled. The spell was extremely powerful and he had no doubt that his holly wand would of exploded of he used it, but his new wand handled it like a seasoned pro. The book called the spell the "fist of the heavens." Aptly named in his opinion.

"HOLY MOTHER- DID YOU FEEL THAT! DID YOU SEE THAT! I'VE NEVER SEEN SUCH A DISPLAY!

He ran over to the egg, but right as he was about to pick it up, the dragon tail twitched and smacked him right in the chest, and knocked him back about 10 feet. The crowd gasped and immediately though the worst, but Harry just stood up like nothing happened, and walked to the egg, picked it up and headed out of the area. Harry was unharmed physically (much to the medi-witch's surprise) but he knew he suffered from magical exhaustion, and would probably have to relax in the hospital wing for a few days.

But hey there's the say "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." Harry ended up getting a perfect score of 50, 10 from each judge. His magic was impressive, his time was the quickest, and it gave a good show. He looked up at Dumbledore in the stand, and he had a contemplative look in his eyes.

Harry was no legillimens but it didn't take a genius to probably figure out what the headmaster was thinking. Probably something along the lines of "impressive magic, he is obviously powerful and even I haven't seen those spells before. I hope he isn't going dark… How have I not noticed any of this change…" and other such nonsense. Harry frowned at the thought, but quickly smiled when he saw his girlfriend give him a thumbs up and blew a kiss towards him.


	10. Plot Revealed

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

Daphne and Hermione raced down from the stands and reached Harry. Harry had a smile on, but quickly said "I need nap."

"You did wonderful Harry; now let's get you out of here before you get swarmed by people looking for interviews."

Harry looked dead on his feet from the exhaustion so they each hooked him under the arm and dragged him up towards the castle before they could be accosted by Dumbledore or errant reporters.

They got Harry up to Hospital Wing. Pomfrey was indisposed at the current moment, Cedric looked to be in serious shit. A lot of his body was burned, and he was bleeding a lot. Pomfrey was frantic, but there was another witch in what appeared to be a St. Mungo's uniform helping out. He was probably too critical condition to get to St. Mungo's but it wasn't life threatening once he was stabalized.

The two girls just laid Harry down in the bed, and he promptly fell asleep before the girls could say anything.

"Just a nap my ass. I bet he sleeps for 3 days" Daphne said.

"I got a galleon on the whole week." Hermione replied with an uncharacteristic response.

"You're on" She said with a smirk. "Any normal wizard would be out for a week, but this is Harry I-Can-Do-The-Impossible Potter we are talking about, so he shall be up in 3 days."

Pomfrey eventually came over and took him under her care, and she forced him to drink magic replenishment potions. She kept muttering "Silly child doesn't know when to stop" under her breathe every time she got a new bottle out. He ended up having to use more than twice the amount the she thought necessary.

Harry indeed, was out for nearly 3 day exactly, and Daphne had a "told you so smile" on her face for the few hours after that. It is also possible that it was just a plain happy smile that resulted in a fantastic 30 minute snogging session that happened before Harry even had his glasses on, but then he remembered he didn't even have glasses anymore so it was a moot point.

Not much happened in the 3 days he was sleeping. His golden egg was on the table next to him, along with a bunch of get wells and congratulations in the form of letters and food. Dumbledore also came in multiple times waiting for him to wake up. Thankfully no reporters were allowed in.

Daphne spent most of the normal training time helping to catch Hermione and Neville up with their spell arsenal. It was all review for Daphne, but repeated practice only makes you stronger, so she had no qualms helping out her new friends. Hermione had a knack for picking up spells quickly, but Neville had a lot more raw power. Not as much as Harry of course, but still an above average amount. His bonecrushing hex in particular wasn't something she fancied being hit by. They didn't learn anything that Harry and Daphne didn't learn during the summer.

Within an hour of Harry waking up, Dumbledore came in, much to his annoyance. He just wanted to spend some time with the lovely Daphne, but instead he got a 100 year old annoying man.

Naturally, he came in wearing the most absurd robe possible, and with the most absurd twinkling eyes possible. He must have been saving his twinkle for the whole 3 days so when he finally used it would be blinding. Harry however, just laughed out loud. "You have got to teach me the twinkling eye trick Headmaster." Harry deadpanned.

"It comes with age, my boy. That was quite the show you put on out there. Would you mind telling where you learned such amazing spellwork."

"Yes I do mind, but if you must know I got them from, where else, but Hogwarts? The books were in an obscure part of the library, but you can find them if you look carefully." Harry said in a cunning move. Daphne must be rubbing off on him in more ways than one; she is bringing out Harry's inner Slytherin. The statement wasn't a lie. He didn't specify which library he got the book in, as the chamber of secrets library is part of Hogwarts.

"Interesting, I thought I would be aware if such powerful magic tomes were in the library, but I suppose it is possible I have overlooked such things. But, alas, even I have never seen those spells before and I will admit I was impressed by your power."

"Alas, my dear headmaster," Harry started mockingly. "While I am a good bit above average in power, I would not be able to cast such spells under normal circumstances. The first spell was a power amplifying spell. It gave me power when I needed it, at the loss of losing it, plus extra later on."

"Surely such a spell would be considered dark magic." He said with no twinkle in his eye. He tried to do a legillimancy probe at that moment.

"I suggest you keep out of mind, old man, otherwise you might find the saying "Mess with the bull, and you'll get the horns" coming true. And I wouldn't make such broad statements about dark magic. It is an elemental spell. Elemental spells are a more pure form of magic, surely you know this? The spell drew upon the power of the land and gave it to me temporarily. That combined with my new wand gave me just enough ability to cast those spells, but I still ended up here in bed for a few days.

"I see…" is all Dumbledore had to say at the present. He was lost in thought. "Surely you could of just struck the dragon with that impressive lightning spell from the beginning?"

"Yes I could of, and I could of killed the dragon with it pretty easily too. I was doing it to give the audience a good show, and it worked out in the end because I got a perfect score."

"I will admit it was a good show, it is not very often you get a display of magic like that." He smiled. "Alas I guess it is time to depart. If you ever need someone to talk to, my office is always open." This time his twinkly eyes were back.

Dumbledore left deep in though. "I wonder where I can learn spells like that. I can't think of any location where you can get a book on elemental spells. Of course I know a few myself, but I only have one book and that is because I nicked it off Grindlewald's personal collection. Spoils of war of course…"

Pomfrey came back, and after checking his vitals, declared him fit. "Just don't stress yourself out too much. I assume the next time I see you will be after the 2nd task in 3 months. Try not to come here before then."

Harry just laughed. "Might as well just put a plaque with my name on it above my favorite bed over there in a corner."

Harry walked into the great hall for dinner, and much to his surprise everyone stood up, and started clapping, minus a few Slytherins and teachers of course.

The mood was ruined though when he heard an unwelcomed voice. "Good show mate!" Ron said like he was all of a sudden his best friend. Harry just gave a disgusted snort and walked past him without saying anything. "Why you stupid git…"

Ron fired a spell at Harry, but he deflected it with his basilisk hide bracer, rushed Ron and picked him up by his throat. "I don't know what you're playing at fool, but what makes you think you're my friend anymore? You disgust me. You tossed 3 years of friendship out over some stupid bigotry. Go bugger yourself." The hall was silent. Harry tossed idiot to the ground at his feet, and walked towards Daphne like nothing happened. Slowly the noise started to pick back up. "Well that was interesting. What did I miss?"

"Well the papers have been buzzing about your performance. Cedric was transferred to St. Mungo's and will probably be there for two more weeks. Hermione, Neville, and I still trained, I started teaching them some of the spells we studied during the summer. "

"Hmm interesting…" is all he said as he ate. He was watching Moody out of the corner of his eye. The grizzled auror was eating like he normally did, but his magic eyeball hasn't left Harry since he entered the hall.

"You got about 3 months to solve the golden egg clue before the next task. Do you have any plans."

"Well I would like to complete my animagus transformation…." Hermione's head shot up from the book she was reading.

"What! Why didn't you tell me about that!"

"Well to be honest I kind of forgot about it and haven't done anything more than discover my forms and research them since the summer."

"Really you got more than one form? That is really rare. I hope you are going to register them." She said with a weird look.

"Of course not, that would ruin the surprise. I'll tell you one of my forms is an ashwinder. My other form shall remain a secret."

"Really? What about you Daphne, what is your form?"

"Eh, I'm just a Knarl. "

"Oh, well that's still neat, it fits your personality."

"I suppose it does. I'm probably about a month away from completing it. Unlike my boyfriend here I have been working on it" Daphne said with a smile.

Harry just snickered. "Well I have been busy…"

"That reminds me we need to work on figuring out who "the culprit" is. I am almost certain I know who it is but I need some concrete evidence before we try to oust him publically. I'm going to need our Gryffindor knowledge and your Slytherin cunning to come up with a plan." Harry continued.

"Really, you think you know who it is?" they all asked simultaneously .

"Yeah" Harry whispered, and immediately set up a privacy ward. "I'm almost certain that it was Moody. He has been acting real strange, I'm almost certain it's not the real Moody, he's a good actor but if you look closely, he's doing almost too good a job and you can tell some of it is being faked. Like when my name came out of the Goblet he was doing _too _good a job at keeping up appearances he didn't even remember that I gave up an explanation on how it happened, and when he came into the meeting chamber he started to give the same explanation but he was cut short."

His friends all looked intrigued at that statement. "The guy has also been acting a little too friendly to me. He attempted to give me help with the first task, and I feigned ignorance. He did confirm to me that it was dragons although it wouldn't of matter. And I think I know how he's doing it too, although Snape kind of figured out the next part by himself. Polyjuice. Snape asked me after class, well more like threatened me, asking if I've been nicking his boomslang skin. I told him I have no need as I have my own if I ever needed it. He asked me if I know what it's used for and the only thing I could think of was Polyjuice."

Hermione was about to offer a few other potions with boomslang skin in it, but Harry continued on.

"Snape realized that I didn't do it, and figured out it must be a teacher who's been drinking polyjuice, but he doesn't have all the information we do. It's pretty obvious when you think about it. Moody DOES drink from that hip flask all day long and probably at least once an hour. The problem is proving he is doing it and that's where you guys come in."

They sat there contemplating the new information for a few moments before Hermione spoke up. "Well part of the solution is easy. The marauders map."

Harry put his palm to his forehead "So brilliant and obvious. I can check it to see where he goes constantly."

Daphne offered up something this time "I have a plan, but we are going to need Snape's help."

Harry groaned but nodded in defeat. "I suppose, he does deserve to help us since he did figure out the polyjuice part. Very well what is your idea?"

"Well we should probably try to figure out where the real Moody is being held. Your map should be able to help with that, but I don't know how it works with polyjuiced people."

"I agree. I've never had to test it like that, but I would imagine that if it can identify you in your animagus form in can identify you through polyjuice." Everyone nodded their head at the logic.

"Well we will ask Snape to brew some Veritaserum. We will then get him to do a switching spell on Moody's flask. He will swap a small amount of Veritaserum with whatever is in the flask. "

Harry spoke up "He does sniff his flask every time he drinks it as if searching for poisons, but it's mostly for appearance. Polyjuice tastes and smells vile, there's no way he could detect it." He motioned for Daphne to continue.

"Snape will then perform a diagnostic on the swapped liquid. If is a normal drink, then he will simply nullify the truth potion, and no one will know it every happened. If it is polyjuice like we suspect then he will give us a signal. The least obvious signal would be a brief legillimancy probe."

"Brilliant. What do you got to publicly oust him?" Harry inquired.

"Well I was thinking of doing something devious like having him transfigured into something stupid, but I think the Gryffindor approach would be useful here…"

The next day Harry skipped his spell training for working on his snake animagus form. It wasn't as simple as slowly transfiguring his hands into the animal equivalent, since snakes don't have hands. Harry also started carrying his map with him at all times. It wouldn't take him long to figure out what's happening though.

Late one night he noticed the first odd thing. He saw that Moody was in his office. There was also a dot labeled Bartemus Crouch. While it wasn't that odd, as they are friends, Harry hasn't seen Crouch in the school at all other than the name drawing and first task. When he woke up he noticed that Moody's dot was still there, but Crouch's dot was patrolling a hallway. He noticed this for a few days before coming to the conclusion that the real Moody is locked up in his own office somehow, and that Crouch must be the fake Moody. He opened the map in his Defense class briefly one day and noted that the dot named Moody was still in his office, and the dot named Crouch was moving in the classroom exactly like the fake Moody was. He immediately put the map away before the fake Moody would notice. After discussing his findings with Hermione and Daphne, they decided to enact phase 2, which is to get Snape in on the deal.

The three of them stayed after class the next day to talk with Snape (Neville was still nervous of the guy). Snape listened to the story, nodding his agreement at all the right parts.

"Very well I will do this, more to satisfy my own curiosity than anything else. I don't have any Veritaserum in stock, but I do have some brewing. It will be done in 2 weeks."

So with something to look forward to in 2 weeks, the friends simply went through their normal motions. Hermione did express interest in wanting to find her animagus form, but the most interesting thing was the announcement of the Yule Ball.

Dumbledore stood up to make the announcement. "It is my pleasure to announce the Yule Ball! It is only for 4th years an older, although you can invite a younger student." The girls all broke into fierce whispering and a lot of giggling. The majority of the guys just groaned. Harry looked pleased, any reason to be with his beautiful girlfriend was a win in his book. "Let it be known that the champions are required to attend with a date, as it is customary for them to open up the first dance. There will be dancing classes for all those who wish to learn. That is all, I bid you all good night!" Harry was suddenly happy that he learned how to dance during the summer, at least he wouldn't make a fool out of himself.

A few days later Snape held Harry back and told him that the serum was ready, and that the plan could be enacted that night. Harry told the girls to prepare for a show that night.

That night they all sat as close to the head table as possible. Snape was sitting on the opposite end of the table as usual, which made it all the more impressive that he performed the switching spell that accurate through a dozen professors. He gave Harry the mental probe signaling that his diagnostic was positive. Harry then in turn gave a mental probe to Daphne to start the chain events.

Daphne discretely and silently banished the glass in one of the Hogwarts large windows, causing the glass to shatter and explode down onto the ground. Many of the teachers stood up to see what cause the disturbance. Harry jumped up, already with the sonorous charm on his voice, pulled out his wand quicker than anyone can blink and yelled out "Finite Incantatem" right at Moody. Moody was only about 10 feet away and had no chance of reacting in time. Harry yelled out "CONSTANT VIGILANCE Professor Moody, or should I say Mr. Crouch.?" This brought shocked looks from nearly everyone. Harry noticed that the man didn't look like Mr. Crouch, but a much younger nastier version.

Dumbledore looked appalled. "What is the meaning of this… Crouch… Jr.? You should be dead!"

Harry wasted no time, he didn't care if it was Merlin himself who was the imposter; he wanted answers. He teleported across the hall right into him. It was the first time he tried it in the school, and it brought the already silent hall to a complete stop. Harry grabbed Crouch Jr. by the throat and pinned him to the wall. Crouch was too stunned by the sudden turn of events to do anything. This is where Snape's Veritaserum swap came into play.

"Did you put my name in the Goblet of Fire."

"Yes." Everyone was hanging onto every word being said now.

Harry thought about asking why, but that was obvious. "Who ordered you?"

Crouch Jr. looked to struggle for a few seconds, but finally said "The Dark Lord!" This brought many angry whispers in the crowd, lots of people were saying "did he say what I think he said?"

"Where is Voldemort?"

Crouch tried to answer but kept stopping midsentence. Dumbledore spoke up this time.

"Is he hiding under a fidelus charm?"

"Yes."

"What is he plotting?"

"He plans to capture Potter and use his blood for a rebirthing ritual." That was the last piece of information that he gave. He suddenly remember that he still had his wand, he drew it and pointed at the ground firing of a blasting hex, everyone shielded their faces from the debris as he attempted to run out of the hall. However he wouldn't be so lucky.

Unexpected by everyone, Neville jumped up from his seat. "That fucker is responsible for putting my parents in St. Mungos!" he roared, and shot his strongest bonecrushing hex right at the man. It was fueled by so much rage that it hit him in the shoulder and blew off the man's whole wand arm in a brutal wave of gore. Blood probably splashed onto a few people but they were already too stunned to notice. Neville just stood there and watched the man bleed, he would probably die in minutes. He showed no emotion. The man all of a sudden vanished into thin air.

"Damnit he had a portkey!"

Several hundred miles away, a man missing an arm showed up in front of the infant Dark Lord. "My lord I've been found out!" He gasped out before he stared to seizure.

"Worthless scum, I should let you die for this insolence, you're lucky I still need you. Lucky for you I also have a backup plan. Delores, be a darling and patch him up."


	11. Yule Ball

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

The great hall was in an uproar, and even Dumbledore couldn't get silence. Aurors eventually arrived on the scene. They talked with Dumbledore for a few minutes about the situation, and Dumbledore said something to Flitwick, who left the hall. Dumbledore finally got the hall quiet after about 15 minutes.

"Silence, Please! I am not sure of everything that just happened but I will try my best to analyze the situation."

He continued. "It seems that Mr. Potter uncovered who put his name in the Goblet. Professor Moody was being impersonated by Barty Crouch Jr. by means of polyjuice. I have known Alastor Moody for a long time, and yet even I did not realize we were being duped." There were murmurs of agreement amongst the staff at this.

"The most disconcerting part about this is that fact that Barty Crouch Jr. was reported to of died many years ago in Azkaban. Mr. Crouch Sr. has not been seen since the first task, which is also odd. He will have to be found, if he is still alive. The next part is the most important part of all. He mentioned that he did it under Voldemort's orders. I assure you that Voldemort is not the man he once was, but he is indeed alive." There was loud outrage at this.

"Let me finish. Voldemort has been trapped as a spirit since the night of his downfall. As a spirit he has the ability to posses other creatures. This is evidenced by the fact that our Professor Quirrell got possessed by him 3 years ago." There were shocks from the crowd this time. Many people didn't know this fact. "It is possible that he is doing it again with another plot to regain is former body. We can only assume that that plan has been foiled for the present. I urge you all to remain calm. Voldemort's greatest weapon is fear. "

Dumbledore continued on with what the future held. Many students would refuse to believe that Voldemort was back and plotting, even if he wasn't all full strength, but there was over 500 students in the hall who heard what Crouch Jr. said. Naturally, there was a certain buggy reporter in the hall at the time. She thought to herself. "It's going to be hard to spin this off. There were a ton of kids down there who heard what he said, and most are probably going to write to their family about what happened…It should put a good shock to the ministry though…"

"Mr. Potter and Mr. Longbottom I would like to speak with you in private." Dumbledore said. Rita Skeeter would follow along of course.

They both left together. Harry whispered to Neville. "Don't make eye contact with him, he can read minds. Legillimancy on minors is illegal, but that is how he always seemingly knows what's going on around here." Neville paled.

The gargoyle let them pass, and Dumbledore told them to come in before they even knocked on the door. "Come in, my boys."

"I will talk to you first Neville. Where did you learn the bonecrushing hex? That is dark magic, although most would say it was justified giving what he did to your parents, and the fact that he should be dead…"

Neville knew he shouldn't say that Harry taught him. Without looking Dumbledore in the eyes, which wasn't hard since he is always nervous around teachers, he said; "Professor Moody showed us once in class Sir. He showed us spells that Death Eaters commonly used, but he didn't teach us how to use them of course."

"Hmmm, I see, very well. I never condone violence, and I should feel relieved that you don't have a kill under your belt. However if he made it back to his master, who knows what is going to happen. I only know that Voldemort has not been active, he has not called for his death eaters, so I think that he only has a few people helping him right now. You probably won't face repercussions for the incident, but Mr. Crouch is going to have a lot of talking to do, assuming he is still alive. This is the second scandal involving his death eater son. The first time he resigned from head of the DML; he probably would be minister right now. He will probably get dropped even lower in the department after this, if he faces no criminal charges."

"Now Harry, What you did today was very foolish, you should have had a plan, or at least went to a teacher with your suspicions."

Harry just smiled. "You underestimate me professor. I did have a plan, we figured out Moody was an imposter weeks ago. And we did have a teachers help."

Dumbledore looked surprised. "Why didn't I hear anything about that?"

"Well it is the teacher's prerogative. You do have a talent for not taking action though, no disrespect of course…"

Dumbledore sighed.

"If you didn't notice, the window exploded causing the perfect distraction. I had help for that. I questioned him, under the influence of Veritaserum, with a simple switching spell, that, I also had help with. Polyjuice is so vile that he wouldn't notice it. I discovered that he was juicing it up with the help of one of my father's heirlooms. I noticed that Moody never left his office, and that is where he still is."

"Yes I assumed as much and Flitwick should be taking him up to the hospital wing. It will probably take a few weeks for him to recover."

"My heirloom showed that it was Barty Crouch teaching our classes, however I thought it was the ministry official, I didn't even know he had a son."

"Yes that is most disconcerting. It seems that Sirius is not the only person to escape Azkaban after all, but Barty probably had some inside help…probably his dad…faked his death and all. Who knows why though?"

The conversation ended after that. Rite Skeeter was going to have a field day.

She printed her article the next day. As expected the article caused outrage everywhere, and the ministry was trying for damage control.

Barty Crouch Jr…Not as dead as we all thought.

_By Special Correspondent Rita Skeeter_

_In a shocking turn of events yesterday at Hogwarts, the mystery behind who put The-Boy-Who-Lived's name into the Goblet of Fire was finally solved, by none other than Harry Potter himself. It turns out that his hypothesis on how his name got entered was true, A teacher was indeed behind it. It turns out that Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody has not actually taught a day this year. He has been impersonated by one Barty Crouch Jr. since beginning of the semester with the use of Polyjuice Potion. _

_Mr. Potter discovered the plot with the use of one of his family heirlooms, it is unclear exactly what it is and even I have not seen it. Mr. Potter put his plan into action last night at dinner. A distraction was created in the form of a breaking window, and he used the distraction to dispel the imposter's disguise. However it was not Crouch Sr. like he was expecting, but his son. However his plan was brilliant, he managed to spike the imposter's polyjuice with Veritaserum earlier with a switching spell, and interrogated him in front of the whole school. What was revealed is truly disturbing. The following is the transcript._

"_Did you put my name in the Goblet of Fire?" Harry Potter asked._

"_Yes." Crouch Jr. answered._

"_Who ordered you?" He asked next._

"_The Dark Lord!" was the unexpected response._

"_Where is (censored)?" Harry asked where You-Know-Who is hiding, but he has no fear and used his actual name._

_Crouch attempted to answer but Dumbledore pointed out the effects of a Fidelus charm._

"_What is he plotting?"_

"_He plans to capture Potter and use his blood for a rebirthing ritual." Remember that this was said under truth serum. _

_At this point in time he attempted to make a getaway. He fired a blasting curse at the ground. It seems no one remembered to take his wand. He attempted to get out of the hall when he was apprehended by Neville Longbottom. Mr. Longbottom went into a rage after seeing the man who ruined his family still alive and about to escape. He fired a nasty curse at the man that was devastating. I would estimate the man only had minutes before he would bleed out, but it seems that he was alive enough to activate a portkey to return to his master. It is possible that the man we all thought was dead, could indeed be dead again, but we can't know for sure. The wizarding can only hope that justice has been dealt. _

_This begs the question on how Crouch Jr. has been alive all these years. Dumbledore has some insight…_

Harry skimmed over the rest of the article. It went into calling for Crouch seniors head, and of course blaming the ministry and Dumbledore.

Hermione had something to say. "That is probably her most truth article that foul women has written so far. Well until she got to the part where she attacks the headmaster like she always does."

"I don't remember seeing a reporter here yesterday, and I don't even know who this Rita Skeeter is…" Harry responded.

"She is the reporter that you have ignored twice already. She writes vile attacks, some even targeting you. Don't you read the paper?"

"This is the first article I have seen from her. I wonder how she got some of this information though, some of this I talked about with Dumbledore up in his office, and I don't see how she could have listened in without anyone noticing."

Hermione took this information as a new personal challenge. Neville looked happy that his attack was seen as an act of justice. Daphne looked happy that she wasn't mentioned at all. Harry hasn't seen the articles about him and his Slytherin girlfriend and she hopes it stays that way. Snape was glad that he was not discovered as the teacher who helped Harry out. However he was very worried about the possibility of the dark lord returning to power. He was going to have to play his line very carefully to not get himself killed.

The article had the whole school in a state of hushed whisper for the next few days. Classes went as expected. Defense was being taught by the House Heads on a rotating schedule until a new professor was found. Rumor was that Dumbledore had a new professor but was waiting until the beginning of next semester to introduce him. The real Moody would not be teaching.

The defense classes with the heads of house were interesting to say the least. McGonagall showed how transfiguration could be used for defense. Flitwick showed some basic protective charms and wards. Sprout went over a list of common herbs that can be used to gain a temporary advantage in various situations. Snape taught which potions are commonly used on the battleground, or the aftermath, such things as potions to deal with the Cruciatus curse after effects.

Harry, Daphne, Hermione, and Neville kept to their training schedule. They started meeting Viktor Krum outside for their morning jog. Turns out he is a decent bloke once you get to know him past his fame. He's similar to Harry in many ways. Hermione seemed extra enthused about him. It became apparent a few days later.

In the great hall a loud conversation was taking place. "We got to get some girls for the ball before all the good ones are taken!" Ron was exclaiming to Dean and Seamus.

"Yeah, lets all promise to have a date before we go to bed tonight"

"Deal"

A few minutes later, Harry saw the funniest scene he has ever seen. Ron jumped up of the meal. Fleur Delacour was just leaving.

"Fleur! Fleur wait!" Ron practically yelled. The whole hall was watching the scene.

"What do you want, little boy? " She said in her heavy French accent.

"Come to the ball with me of course!"

"Is this some sort of joke?" She seemed genuinely offended.

"Er- I thought-" he stammered, really embarrassed.

"Sorry to disappoint." She left the hall. "Silly boy." She said to no one in particular.

One would think that Ron would cut his losses, but alas, it was not to be.

Ron seemed to notice the hall was staring at him, most people were laughing, but he put on his best Gryffindor façade, and went over to Hermione.

"Hermione, you're a girl, will you go to the ball with me?"

"Very good Ron, you've finally noticed I'm a girl. The answer is no."

"Why not?"

"Well that answer is obvious. I'm already taken." She said with a look that anyone with a brain would interpret as "Are you always this fucking dumb?"

"Haha…you're serious? Who would want to go with you?" Ron said incredulously.

"Wow you really are a dumb prick" she said with a huff of annoyance.

Ron just stormed out at this. His face was as red as his hair.

"Idiot thinks that everything should be handed to him on a platter."

Harry and Daphne were sitting across from her with smiles on their faces. Sometime during the show of stupidity Harry conjured a bag of popcorn. Of course it didn't have any sustenance but it was funny nonetheless. They both had a good idea of who she is going with, but they haven't talked about it. Harry of coursed asked Daphne about 2 minutes after the Ball was announced so everyone would know not to bother them. That didn't stop some fan girls from trying to get a date with the boy-who-live, or a lot of earlier students trying to get the most attractive witch in the Snake House.

The group of 4 continued their spell practice as well as their physical training. Harry was mostly trying to work on his animagus forms along with his spell repetitions. Instead of learning more spells, he was trying to expand on his wandless capabilities, he could now do most of the year one spellbook without trouble. Harry did get an extreme interest in one particular elemental spell, and he spent a lot of time translating the passage into something usable.

Hermione was brewing the animagus potion for Neville and herself. Daphne made her first transformation a week before the ball.

After a few minutes of intense concentration, Daphne all of a sudden started emitting a blinding white light from her body. She slowly morphed into her Knarl form for the first time. She stayed in it for about 5 minutes before shifting back.

"Wow Daph you did it!" Harry exclaimed.

"Yeah, that was wicked, but bloody tiring. Good thing it should only be easier from here on out." she responded, exhausted.

She was not going to register her form. Even though it is illegal, she figured the pros outweighed the cons of the possible blackmail material. She did have a fallback plan. She would have the form filled out prepared to be filled upon first notice of anything underhanded being attempted against her.

Christmas finally arrived. Presents were opened, Harry liked Daphne's gift, and he hoped that she liked his. Harry gave her an enchanted mirror. Sirius showed him the two that he and his dad used to use. Sirius would have gave Harry his dad's but Harry was afraid of breaking it, so he just enchanted two new ones. They serve as communication devices. You announce who you want to speak to, and if that person has their mirror they receive the call and they appear in each other's mirrors.

Harry and Neville chilled out together for most of the day. They probably would only take 20 minutes to get ready, the girls would take hours. Eventually the time came. Harry walked down into the ante chamber to wait with the other champions and their dates. Harry wore his basilisk armor and a regal cloak. He meticulously polished his armor so the scales were very shiny. His cloak had the Potter and Black Family crests on the back. He wore a sort of Heralds tabard on top of his armor, it was only about a foot wide and didn't cover too much, but went down to his knees. It was white with gold trim. He had the Potter family crest on this also, but no Black family. He had a jeweled ceremonial sword at his waist. He hasn't retrieved Gryffindor's Sword yet, but he put it on his to do list. Overall he had a very intimidating look, yet very elegant and stylish. He looked the part of being a noble at a dance.

Daphne entered the room after a few minutes. She wore a stunning Midnight Blue dress, with an elegant choker. The dress came down to her feet, but it did accentuate her in all the right parts, and gave more than just a hint of her cleavage. Her hair was worn down; it came down to slightly below her shoulders. A few of the hair strands on her front were dyed midnight blue to go with her dress. Harry was stunned by her beauty, not for the first time. Heck even Fleur was shooting her an envious look.

"Good evening milady" Harry said with his best medieval accent.

"Good evening milord" she said back with a flirty smile.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, McGonagall came in.

"The Yule Ball will be starting now, and you will be heading out momentarily to start the first dance."

They entered the hall in a line. They were met with great applause, cheering, at catcalls. Harry only took one look at the crowd. Half of the guys were looking at Fleur, who was forcefully emitting her veela charm to the max, but still the other half of the guys were looking right at his girlfriend. He didn't know if he should defend her from all the foul men, or praise her for being so beautiful. There were some gasps of disbelief when people saw that Hermione was Krum's date. She did look good though, she clearly spent a lot of time on her looks and it paid off. Her teeth were perfect and her hair was really straight and shiny. Harry saw that Neville was with Padma Patil.

The first song came on. "May I have this dance milady?" Harry asked regally.

"Certainly milord." She said with a smile.

They danced the required dance perfectly, and they were clearly the hottest couple. They got loud cheers from the crowd.

Eventually the floor filled up with more couples.

Eventually Harry saw something that put himself into a fit of giggles. "Did you see who Ron is with?"

"No, who?" she said.

"Millicent Bullstrode." He said with a laugh.

"Wow. She doesn't have the nickname "The Bull" for nothing. " she said with an uncharacteristic giggle. "She is the man in that partnership, that's for sure."

"Think he is under the imperious? I mean he was making such a big deal about hating Slytherins; it doesn't seem like him even if he has been acting like a huge bell end. "

"Eh, fine by me."

They danced for about 5 more songs before they sat down with Neville, Padma, Viktor, and 'Hermyknee' for dinner. They made light talk and they saw Ron sitting with his brother Percy who was taking over for his boss, Crouch, for the Triwizard duties. Percy seemed proud that his brother got girl from a "respectable pureblooded family."

Harry called out "Dobby!" and he appeared with pop.

"Do you have it?"

Dobby nodded his head enthusiastically, handed Harry a bottle and popped away.

Harry conjured 6 shot glasses and filled them up. Hermione looked skeptical, but didn't say anything, and took hers.

"To friends." Harry said.

"To friends!" They all cheered and downed the glasses.

Viktor had an appraising look on his face. "Very good, I would estimate about 150 year old Firewhiskey" he said with his thick accent.

Harry nodded "153 years old."

Hermione looked like the only one who was having trouble with the shot, and was coughing. When she was done with her fit she asked "How were you all able to do that without coughing?"

Neville offered an answer "it is not uncommon for wizarding families to have Firewhiskey at celebrations and parties. I remember my first when I was 8, so I've had some practice." Everyone else offered similar stories.

"You don't share stories with Sirius and Moony without being able to tolerate the stuff" Harry added with a laugh.

Eventually they got up and started dancing. Harry and Daphne were getting very into it, and had a circle cleared around them. The slow songs started up again about 30 minutes after that and they drew close together and shared many passionate kisses over the next hour. The Ball slowed down and they were the last couple on the floor before Dumbledore officially announced the end at 1 AM.

* * *

Hundreds of Miles away in a remote manor. An infantile Dark Lord was in front of a fire, spending his Christmas with a snake, a one armed man, a toad, and a ferret. Naturally none of the purebloods celebrate "that mudblood disgrace of a holiday" and instead referred to it as the winter solstice.

"Tell me Lucius, have you managed to obtain the creature we require?" Voldemort asked.

"Yes my lord, it was no problem with Fudges approval. It will be in place in time for the task." The blond man responded.


	12. Second Task

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

The New Year just started. The Yule Ball was just another fond memory. Now he had to worry about the second task. It was just under 2 months away.

The egg has not moved from its perch in the Chambers of Secrets since he put it there over a month ago. He went down there alone as he wanted to examine it by himself first.

The first thing he did was examine the outside of it. It was a gold color, and the only imperfections were a hinge where it opened.

He opened it.

And he immediately closed it. It emitted a loud ear piercing screech.

He opened it again, upside down this time. Same results.

At this rate he would be deaf. He then did the obvious. He cast a silencing charm on the egg, and took a peek inside. To his dismay there was nothing inside.

"Well that screeching sound is obviously the clue. I probably have to do something to the egg to change the sound into something I can understand. Maybe a using different spells unlocks different sounds. That could be plausible. Hmm what spells would be obvious."

He spent the next 2 hours throwing spells of varying power at the thing, all to no avail. He was getting extremely pissed off by this time.

"Ssstupid fucking egg." He hissed. "Of coursssse it wouldn't be sssso ssssimple assss throwing every sssspell man knowsss at the ssstupid thing."

As he was hissing in anger, his body started to glow. Eventually the light became so blinding, anyone looking on would have had to close their eyes and look away.

After 2 minutes of the light building up, Harry's form started to change. Slowly his body started to thin, and yet get longer at the same time. His arms joined with the side of his body, and his legs fused together. A few moments after that he was almost cylindrical, and eventually snakelike.

By this time he was on the ground, and the light was starting to slowly dim. He was covered completely in scales. His scales were the grey of an ashwinder; he finally managed to transform into his animagus form.

It took extreme anger, along with his inner snake, and the environmental stimulus of being in the Chamber of Secrets, to finally pull him through.

Harry was completely shocked that he transformed like that out of the blue. Not one to waste such opportunity, he quickly tried to figure out how to move, it wasn't too hard, part of learning to become an animagus is to learn about that kind of stuff. However, figuring out how to use his magical abilities would be something else. Thankfully, his inner instinctual snake should be able to guide him.

One thing he noticed as a snake, was that he saw differently. A lot differently. Besides the fact that he was now on the floor, he didn't see in colors like humans do. He saw mostly in grayscale, the magnificent greens and silver of the chamber all looked grey or white. However he noticed something peculiar. He was able to see heat signatures; he saw the flames of the torches as a yellowish color, but not the color of a flame. Hell when he looked at the ceiling, he saw nothing but blue. He wasn't sure what it meant at first, but then he realized that it must be the magic. He must be looking at the wards on the ceiling; there sure was a lot of them. It must be some sort of a sixth sense that magical animals have.

"I wonder why Daphne didn't mention it, or maybe she wasn't able to determine what she was seeing…"

Harry looked over at the egg. He was momentarily shocked. The egg had a red aura surrounding it, with a faint blue aura signifying it was magical. Harry's snake instincts told him that the red aura meant it was an enemy, and before he could control himself, he felt magic building inside his slim form, and then it released itself out from his mouth in the form of an arc of fire.

The arc sort of acted like lightning, but it was fire and not electricity. He was amazed at what he just did, but disappointed that he couldn't control himself. He would have to learn how to gain control over himself. He felt himself weakening, and eventually shifted out of his form. He was in the form for about 10 minutes. He went over to the egg to see if he did anything with the ashwinder flamechain, but to his dismay, it did nothing.

He felt like he was about to pass out, so he grabbed his communication mirror out of the bag and announced "Daphne!"

About 30 seconds passed before he saw her face appear "Oh my god Harry what's wrong?"

"Chamber of secrets…animagus…tired."

"I can't get in there without speaking parseltongue."

"Just hold the mirror up the entrance, I will try to speak if I don't pass out."

"Ok I'm on my way!"

5 minutes later Daphne arrived at the entrance. Harry spoke the password through the mirror.

"You stupid idiot! What were you thinking of transforming by yourself for the first time!" She yelled.

"It was an accident… I was working on the egg, got pissed off, and transformed. Uhg… get me to a bed. It is probably easier to get to the bed in Salazar's chambers instead of up the pipe." She nodded her head, and levitated Harry. He spoke the 2 passwords, and was laid down in the bed.

"So this is where you got all those magnificent books from! This place is really nice." Daphne exclaimed.

"I'm sorry I haven't showed it to you before. I kind of forgot that there was more than just a library here. Oh that reminds me, there should be potions in the lab, I could really go for some restoratives.

Daphne nodded her head and went to go explore. About 15 minutes later Daphne returned with 3 vials. One was a magical restorative, another was a muscle relaxer, and the last was a bottle of Firewhiskey.

Harry raised an eyebrow an eyebrow at the whiskey. "I don't remember that being there?"

"There was a whole case in the lab, it is certainly a lot more recent than 1000 years old." She said with a laugh.

"Who would…OHHH. Stupid Sirius must of put that there. That is exactly something he would do. Too bad there is no whiskey in Potions class, I could sure use some after some of the shit Snape puts us through." He said with a grin, and downed the first two potions. He cracked open the whiskey, took a gulp, and passed it to Daphne, who did the same.

She could tell that Harry was about to pass out, so she quickly transfigured his clothes, and then did the same to hers. She quickly slipped underneath the covers and snuggled up to Harry. He was already passed out, but he unconsciously pulled her close to him into a spoon position. She let out a content sigh and fell asleep also.

They both woke up the next day, looking refreshed, and with huge grins on their face. Nothing happened that night, but it was still the first time they have slept in a bed together, and they both enjoyed the others company.

"You looked like you needed company last night"

"Thanks…I slept good that's for sure."

"So what exactly were you doing with the egg?" Daphne asked.

"Well whenever you open the thing, it emits a piercing screech. You can kind of tell that the pitch changes, but it starts to hurt your ears after a few seconds. I figure that you have to do something to the egg to change the screech into something you can listen to." He did a brief demonstration, and she immediately clamped her ears closed.

"Sound reasonable, so you were just chucking spells at it to see if it would change the sound when you opened it?"

"Yeah."

"Did you actually try it while the egg was opened?" She inquired.

"Well uh…no, I fired a spell at the outside, then opened it up to see if the sound changed. You think I would get different results if I did it while it was screeching?"

"Worth a try. I would recommend us doing it outside though so we got more room for the bigger spells. Plus the screech won't echo and kill our ears like it does in here."

They made their way outside. Luckily the spring semester had not started back up yet, so the castle was only about half full. Not everyone in the school attended the Yule Ball.

There was snow on the ground, about a foot, but the lake was not frozen. They went over to the edge of the lake, and placed the egg in the snow about 25 feet away. Harry quickly flipped the egg open and Harry quickly teleported themselves about 50 feet away. "Incendio on the count of 3."

"1…2…3!" They both unleashed a beam of fire at the egg, and held the stream for about a minute. They could still hear the screech of the egg about the roar of the fire.

Next they tried the fireball spell, then after that the freezing charm, then the flame freezing charm, then the fireball/freezecharm combo spell.

They were starting to draw a crowd. The snow around them in a 100 foot circle was long melted. They tried stunners, cutting charms, slicing charms, healing charms, stone gouging charms. Daphne was getting pretty tired, so Harry went into his limited spell repertoire.

He tried the fist of the heavens- of course a weaker version of what he used on the dragon. He used a blizzard on it. He knew there was a blizzard charm, but he didn't know it, so he used the elemental version. He made it rain on it, and that was when he heard a faint difference for the first time. He used a standard aguamenti on it, but it wasn't effective at 50 feet, so he switched back into an elemental spell. He used the power of wind to form a water tornado, and guided it onto the egg. The tornado was only about 15 feet high, but it was spraying water all over the place and was quite impressive. However it was a little too powerful, and the egg fell off its perch and slid into the water of the lake. Harry ran after it immediately without thinking. He dove in, and saw the egg stopped about 8 feet deep. The egg was still open and he heard the song for what it truly was- merfolk song. He was amazed by their singing.

"_Come seek us where our voices sound,_

_We cannot sing above the ground,_

_And while you re searching, ponder this:_

_We've taken what you'll sorely miss,_

_An hour long you'll have to look,_

_And to recover what we took,_

_But past an hour- the prospect's black,_

_Too late, it's gone, it won't come back"_

He snatched up the egg quickly after he listened to it once more, and swam to shore. He was soaked, and freezing, literally.

Daphne, thinking quickly, cast a fireball right into his chest. Steam billowed off him. The people watching on looked appalled, but Harry was safe in his basilisk hide. She quickly cast heating charms on his exposed face and hands, and conjured a blanket.

Harry wanted to tell Daphne what he heard without other people hearing it. He got an idea. He made eye contact with Daphne, who in turn made eye contact with him. He opened his mind completely, and invited her in, he summoned up the memory he wanted her to see; the merfolk song.

She gasped as what just happened. Neither of them knew any legillimancy, so the only explanation she could come up with was that Harry invited her in willingly to share a memory of his choosing. Legillimancy is the art of invading a mind, but she wasn't invading since she was invited. They were both equally surprised that it worked so they quickly headed up into the castle to get warm.

They made their way in front of the large fireplace in Salazar's private quarters. There is no securer place in the school; it takes a password to get down into the chamber, another into the chamber itself, another to open up the passageway to the rooms, and a password to get into the room itself.

They sat down on the floor, and Harry wandlessly lit the fire. A job like this calls for more Firewhiskey, so he pulled the bottle out and took a swig "For medicinal purposes" he said in his best Hagrid impression.

"So Hermione was right, it is a rescue mission, but it is not in the forbidden forest like we thought, instead I have to freeze my ass of in the lake to rescue you, since you are what I would most sorely miss." He got a lingering kiss for that.

Daphne nodded her head in agreement. "Now we just got to figure out a way for you to breathe underwater, and survive in the frigidness. We should also research what creatures are in the lake. You will also need a way to locate me. I assume I will either be put in stasis using a spell or the drought of living death." She shivered at the thought.

Harry sighed. "Easier said than done. I could probably charge up my magic and create some water vortex around me, right out Moses's textbook... for maybe a minute" he laughed.

"I don't know any spells offhand that could help. We have mostly looked at Offensive and Defensive spells. Transfiguration is a possibility, but I don't think my ashwinder will appreciate the water too much."

"Don't forget that potions are a possibility, also plants." Daphne added.

"I could always summon a submarine." Harry laughed.

"A what?"

"It's a muggle thing. It is an enclosed metal ship that travels completely underwater for months at a time.

"Oh. Somehow I don't think that is going to help." Daphne said.

"Well I suppose scuba gear would be a better choice."

"Er, come again?"

"Another muggle thing. It is a supply of oxygen that you carry on your back. You can wear flippers to help you swim better." Harry said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"So sort of like a bubble?"

"Yeah I guess." Harry conceded.

"Well there is the bubblehead charm." She said while taking a sip of the whiskey.

"The what?" Harry said.

"It's a wizarding thing." She said with a smile "I've seen Snape use it while making potions to keep the gases out of his face, or to make sure he doesn't breathe into the liquid. I suppose it could work, but I'm not sure if it would be durable enough. It might be able to hold up to the pressure but what if you get poked? It could pop and then you drown. I would say it is a backup plan at best. You will need something more reliable."

"Well transfiguration is a possibility, but it would probably be pretty complex to transfigure working gills onto yourself, but I suppose it is possible. Heck there might be a potion to grow gills. Maybe even a plant."

"I could ask Neville about the plants. I'm sure he would be more than willing to help."

"You know, I could probably just teleport my way down there."

"True, but you would still need to breathe."

"Yeah, I guess, but it would cut my travel time significantly."

"Well there is one failsafe way to breathe underwater" she said with a smirk.

"Humor me." Harry said dryly.

"You could become a vampire." She said with a laugh.

"Pass." He gave a yawn.

They fell asleep leaning on each other in front of the fireplace, they did exert themselves a lot by the lake that day.

They woke up after dinner, so they nicked some from the kitchens. Harry then pulled out the Marauders Map and located Neville. He was with Hermione, and oddly enough the Weasley twins, in abandoned third floor corridor from their first year.

They knocked on the door, they heard some hushed whispering on the other side before it was opened up.

"Hey mate whats up?" Neville said.

"Well I have a question, and your area of expertise might be able to help" Harry responded.

"Area of expertise? I think you got the wrong person buddy" he laughed.

"There is no one better at Herbology" Harry said.

"I suppose..."

"I'm looking for a plant or potion that can help me breathe under water."

"Well that's easy." He said. "Gillyweed Potion. Also gillyweed itself. You take it and then you grow gills and your extremities become webbed for a set period of time."

"Brilliant, but is there a way to end it early? I don't have a set time frame, I wouldn't be good to finish early and not be able to breathe air when I need to."

"Well you would probably be out of luck then. You have to wait it out." Neville finished.

Hermione spoke up for the first time. "Have you thought of the bubblehead charm?"

"Yeah, not practical enough for my purpose in my opinion."

"Oh."

Harry suddenly got an epiphany. He quickly sent a mental image of his idea to Daphne who nodded her head at the brilliance of the plan.

"So what are you doing with the twins in here?"

"Oh well this is where me and Hermione have been practicing, since we can't get in "the normal" space without you there."

"I do have a solution for that."

"Oh, well anyways the twins came up to be after the Crouch Jr. incident, and they asked me to teach them the spell I used. So I did that and they wanted to learn more, so I've been teaching them the list of stands spell we have been practicing with."

"Fair enough. The more people we got in our group we can trust, the better. "

"We are often underestimated by our classmates, they think we are only jokesters." One of the twins said.

"Little do they know that we got an O on our Transfiguration, Charms, and Potions OWLs." The second twin said.

"Since that is the kind of stuff we use all the time in our joke products."

"However the rest of our grades were abysmal, particularly our defense."

"We want to be prepared for the upcoming war." They finished together on serious note.

"I agree, the better we prepare now, the better off we will be in the future. It is a good idea to start gathering allies you can trust." Harry said.

"It is also a family matter." A twin said.

"Our family might split apart if the war breaks out."

"Mom and Dad are in Dumbledore's pocket, they were in the last war, they would die for him. We wouldn't."

"Bill and Charlie share a similar mindset to us, but are more likely to remain neutral."

"Percy will probably fall to the dark path. He is firmly entrenched in the ministry, but half the lot there is corrupted. It wouldn't take too much for the right people to say the right things, and then he is theirs."

"Ron, who knows what's up with him nowadays, he's got a major bug up his ass. Even if he were to join follow the dark path, he is still pretty much useless at anything that doesn't involve chess or Quidditch knowledge."

"Ginny is powerful in her own right, and will probably choose her own path. She is the seventh child of the family, and she is the first Weasley female born in seven generations, and we all know how magic works in the weirdest ways. I would suspect that she will follow whoever her role model is. Sometimes it's us, other times its mom and dad, other times its Dumbledore, and even you. "

Harry stood there absorbing what they were saying. It is not often that you can have a serious conversation with the twins. They have obviously been thinking about the future, after all they are future businessmen, and it is all about preparing for the future.

"Catch the twins up, and we will start going over new material once the semester starts. I want to see if we get a decent defense teacher. I hate to admit it, but the imposter Moody was probably our best teacher yet, even if he was a Death Eater." Harry said.

The new semester started a few days later. The new defense teacher was introduced that night in the returning feast. Harry was at the Ravenclaw table when he noticed a tall black man sitting in the vacant seat. He looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place it. Dumbledore stood up and said some of his norm, then announced the teacher.

"It is my pleasure to introduce the new professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts…Kingsley Shacklebolt! He has been an Auror for many years, and who better than to teach the youngster of a country then the brave people who defend us?"

He was met with great applause.

Harry looked at his timetable and saw that he has defense with the snakes, charms with the snakes, transfiguration with the birds, Herbology with the puffs, potions with the snakes. Runes and arithmancy were all houses. Harry was curious on why the Gryffindors were paired up with the Slytherins so often, but he supposed that they might be paired up with the birds and puffs in the classes he wasn't taking.

Harry made his way to the defense classroom. He was already running late because he got caught up in a book. He made it to the classroom 5 minutes after the bell. As soon as he entered the classroom, he saw beams of red light arc at him. His seeker reflexes helmed immedietly. He noticed that it was Shacklebolt attacking from about 20 feet away, and there was another Auror on his left. He took one glance at the students, many of them were supporting ice packs so he figured that this was a test, he got a smile on his face.

Harry dove behind the desk. He stood up and fired a blue stunner at the Unnamed Auror, and then went to fire a yellow stunner at Shacklebolt. They didn't recognize the spells so they both dived out of the way. Harry quickly used his wand and created a massive blast of wind that sent the unnamed Auror to the ground. Her Protego shield didn't help at all. Harry quickly transfigured the ground into quicksand, she tried to dispel it, but Harry sent a multitude of rainbow stunners at her. This all happened in about 10 seconds.

Shacklebolt was stunned at the young kids wand work, and immedietly prepared himself for the coming duel.

"I've been an Auror for 10 years, I should have know better than to underestimate this kid, especially after what I saw at the first task" Kingsley thought to himself.

Shacklebolt hit Harry right in the back with a reductor curse while he was finishing with his partner. He thought he won, and was about to taunt him about covering his ass when Harry just shrugged it off. His robe was torn on the back, and his armor was shining through.

Harry ducked and rolled behind some desks. Many of the students got up and were standing at the back wall.

"Unda vermenti maxima" Harry bellowed. A water spring formed on the ground, and water was pouring out of it very quick. Harry jumped onto a desk and cast a small lightning bolt at the water, which shocked Shacklebolt for a few seconds, and buying him time.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" He only announced the spell the first time, but after a few twirls of his wand he had all the furniture floating up in the air.

"Mico Congelo" He again said aloud. The water started to freeze very rapidly. In about 30 seconds the whole floor was covered in smooth ice.

"Expelliarmus" Harry finally said, and getting Shacklebolt's wand.

The students were to stunned too say anything. They were impressed by Harry's magic, but he didn't really use anything that you couldn't learn from their current year's spellbook.

Harry walked up to the chalkboard. "Ok everyone listen up, first lesson, never underestimate your opponent." Was all he said. He transfigured his shoes into ice skates and skated to his desk, and sat down. "If someone can help the teacher and his partner, please do!"

The Aurors just laughed it up. "Potter stay after class." Shacklebolt said with a smile. The rest of the class was just spent on review and going over what they were taught by Moody, it has been over a month since their last DADA class. The class ended and he stayed back.

"Harry I would like to introduce you to Tonks. She is my Auror partner, and now my teaching assistant."

"Er, I met her a few times before but now she looks different?"

"I'm a metamorph." Tonks said.

"Oh."

"Anyways that was some impressive spellcasting, you honestly caught us both of guard. None of the other students put up much of a fight. I don't think any of them were expecting to be attacked first class, not even your girlfriend. Constant vigilance! Hehe." Tonks laughed. "what were those different color spells you kept launching at me in the beginning? I didn't recognize any of them."

"Well, I sent a blast of wind at you, but all those different colors spells were just stunners." He said with a smile.

"Really!?" she said astonished. "I didn't know you could change the colors"

"Well they were all different spells technically. The black stunners are the strongest, and the yellow stunners the weakest. But you could also just change the spell effect color without changing the magic by just saying "viridis stupefy" for a green stunner. You can say the first part of the spell silently too"

"Wow, why didn't we learn that in the academy?"

He shrugged. "I don't suppose you know what Sirius has been up to? He mentioned something about rejoining the academy, but we haven't talked too much. I figure you would know." Harry inquired.

"Yes, he did rejoin the Academy. Since he was an Auror once before, he was put into an accelerated program. Less training, but more undercover casework. I will tell you that he was here for the first task, he was undercover. I am not at liberty to discuss with you what he is doing right now, but he might just still be undercover here at school" Kingsley said with a wink."However if he wants to get back on the squad through the fast program, he has to be on his best behavior, so he can't do anything that would compromise himself, which includes talking to you. His assignment will be done once the second task is completed. Anything else you want to talk about?"

"I noticed you decorated the room with swords on the wall. I suppose you are a good swordfighter?" Harry asked

"Some would consider me a master, but I don't. There is not that much of a use for the skill, but it keeps me in shape."

"Can you train me? I trained with swords over the summer, but it has been awhile, and we were just novices at best."

"Yeah, sure kid, It would be a pleasure."

Harry left. Harry was deciding when a good time to get The Sword was. Probably next time he got called up into the headmaster's office. "I could probably ask Salazar about the sword, Godric was his best friend after all so he should know something" he mused in his head.

The next few weeks went by without anything big happening. Harry trained with Shacklebolt twice a week. The twins were showing great promise, they frequently thought of bizarre and weird ways to use joke spells to hinder your opponents. They were also masters of time delaying their spells, which could have nasty consequences.

Harry continued working on his plan for the second task. He did buy some gillyweed, he was going to explore the lake and take note of the creatures in there. He brewed the potion he was going to use for the task, the potion would take about a month to make.

The rest of the time before the second task was just a grind. A few new spells here, doing homework there, some outdoor exploration in their animagus forms. Harry did catalogue what he found in the lake. Not too much, giant squid, grindylows, merfolk, he even thought he caught a glimpse of a hippocampus, but nothing truly dangerous. However the lake was big. He was having Hermione research a good way to locate Daphne faster. She found a tracking potion, as well as a simple spell call "point me". Harry put the finishing touches on his plan, and now he was just playing the waiting game. Harry was mostly learning out of his elemental books again, focusing on water based spells for the second task.

The day of the task finally came. Sure enough, Daphne wasn't at breakfast, but she drank the tracking potion last night, it is good for 24 hours. He noticed Hermione also wasn't there, along with Cho Chang. He didn't see anyone that was missing for Fleur. Harry ate his breakfast quickly, and double checked he had everything. He has his Plan A, Plan B, which was the bubblehead charm, Plan C which was a 15 minute dose of gillyweed potion, and Plan D, which was summoning an aqualung from a nearby town. He had on his full basilisk armor as it was light and would help him against the sharp coral. He also had both of his wands.

He made his way outside with the rest of the castle, and went to the staging area with the other 4 contestants. Ludo Bagman was again making the announcements. Percy was still filing in for Crouch, who was eventually found, but he has been in a coma in St. Mungo's with unknown trauma.

"Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen to the Second Triwizard Event!" Bagman exclaimed. "At the bottom of the lake there are the 4 people that the champions would miss most! They have one hour to rescue the hostages. We start when the new hour rings! "

3 minutes later the bell rang, and the champions got to work. Cedric and Fleur both opted for the bubblehead charm. Krum spent about 5 minutes transfiguring his upper body into a shark head. Harry took out his Plan A, a potion. He quickly added the final ingredient, and it turned a nasty brownish blue. He quickly drank it. His body slowly started to change form, he skin started to change into bluish green scales, and it looked like he had coral growing out of him.

"Brilliant!" Ludo announced "Our youngest champion has ingested something that turned himself into a Merman!"

Harry did indeed drink a polyjuice potion. Usually it is not a good idea to change into creatures, but merfolk are not that far off from being human. Turning into a centaur on the other hand would probably suck, but turning into a goblin wouldn't be too bad either. Harry nicked merman hair when he was exploring the lake earlier in the week.

Harry quickly dived in. Luckily for him Merfolk can survive breathing air for a decent amount of time, but they have gills, and as such need water. Harry swam towards the bottom of the lake, in record time, mermen were truly good swimmers. He cast his locating spell for Daphne's tracking potion, and a yellow beam of light was overlaid onto his vision so only he could see it. Harry started following the light towards his goal.

After about 5 minutes later, without seeing a single creature, a giant shadow passed right over him. He looked up and saw what he thought was a giant serpent. "What the fuck is that!" Harry said out loud in gibberish. "There should not be a sea serpent in this lake!"

The serpent turned around and was preparing to ram him. "They are not usually aggressive creatures either…!" Harry had to dodge the serpents open mouth as it rushed passed.

Harry took out his wand and cast "Mico Congelo!" The water around the serpent started to freeze, and its tail got stuck in a block of ice. The serpent started to thrash about trying to free its tail. Harry was casting spells at the vines on the seafloor to get them to engulf the giant serpent. Slowly the vines started to drag the serpent to the bottom. Harry was about to turn around and continue on his with his rescue.

All of a sudden the serpent flashed a bright white light. The serpent transformed itself into a sword fish, and was free of the snares. Harry was starting to panic, but he remained calm through his occlumency training. He was thinking of a plan to defeat this monster. "It obviously isn't a normal sea serpent. Sea serpents are not usually aggressive. This thing just transformed and is still out for my blood. " He dodged the fish " Oh god damnit this thing must be a Kelpie. That thing is certainly not supposed to be in this lake, and I doubt the tournament organizers would put such a beast in here. Must be the work of Voldemort…but how?" All the thoughts were rushing through his head as he was dodging the fast fish.

Harry's mind was working in overdrive, he was going through spells that could help him. "Oh duh!" Harry conjured a net, but the kelpie tore right through it. He quickly conjured another net but this time put an unbreakable charm on it. It worked.

Harry had to finish it off so it wouldn't free itself and hurt the other champions. He cast a stone gouging curse right through its midsection. It made a one foot diameter hole, straight through. It must of went through some vital organs, as it stopped thrashing around, and slowly shifted back into its natural form; a horse like creature with bulrushes for a mane. It slowly floated up to the surface. Harry spent about 20 minutes fighting the creature, so he only had 30 left. He quickly swam towards the light, and a few minutes later he saw an underwater city. He saw the merfolk, they were all singing the song from the egg. Eventually he saw more and more of them, so he knew he was getting close to the hostages.

Harry came up to where the hostages were. He must have been the first one there as all the hostages where there. Sure enough he saw Daphne, Hermione, Cho, and a younger version of Fleur "Must be her sister." He went up to one of the guards, who was holding he spear. "Can I borrow your spear sir?" he said in mermish. The guard nodded his approval, and a few minutes later Harry cut through the ropes holding Daphne down. He handed the spear back and quickly swam up to the surface with her.

The breached the surface. He saw a few aurors examining the Kelpie corpse, and quickly made his way to the shore.

"Ah the first successful champion has arrived, total time is 45 minutes! Impressive!" Ludo said. Harry noticed that Fleur was already on the shore, being fussed over by the nurse.

Harry quickly went to dispel his merman form, it still had about 15 minutes left and he didn't want to wait. Normally the finite incantatem spell does not work on potions, but he was really angry when he used it on Crouch. Unfortunately he wasn't angry this time, so he had to use something else. Fortunately there was an easier solution. The same spell that forces you out of your animagus form should work.

"Finite Mutatio!" he said a little more loudly then he meant to. He slowly transformed back, but a commotion was heard.

"What the fuck!" Fleur suddenly said in her heavy accent. Harry turned around and saw that she was on the ground with Rita Skeeter laying right on top of her.

"Oh!" It all clicked in Harry's mind "I used the animagus revealing charm and she got hit by it too! She must be an animagus, and an Illegal one at that!" The stupid bint must have a really small form, and must have been in her hair snooping for a story.

Harry all of sudden felt a hand on his shoulder "Good job pup" Sirius spoke up with a grin." She will have a nice jail cell to sit in for a few months I would think. Sorry I haven't been around much." Harry noticed that Padfoot was in Auror robes.

"Good to see you Sirius!" he said with a grin. "Thanks for leaving that whiskey in the potions lab…"He said with his back of his hand covering his mouth.

Dumbledore came over to where they were. Rita was currently having animagus suppressing shackles put on. "Usually it is just a heavy fine, and 6 months community service, along with being forced to register. However she will probably get a few years for her malicious reporting, and probably including treason, amongst other stuff. Ah here comes the next champion" he said with a twinkle.

Viktor Krum came up with Hermione in his arm. "Ah it's the Durmstrang Champion Viktor Krum. 53 minutes!"

A few minutes later; "Cedric Diggory, Hogwarts. 59 minutes!"

At this point Dumbledore was talking with the merman chief. Harry couldn't understand Mermish anymore, but he assumed they were just going over the event. Eventually another merman came up with Fleur's sister, who immedietly ran over to her.

After the judges convened for a few minutes, they were ready to hand out the points.

"Fleur Delacour, we award 25 points for the Bubblehead charm, and a valiant effort that ultimately failed."

"Cedric Diggory, we award 39 points for use of the Bubblehead charm, and for successfully rescuing your hostage with a minute to spare."

"Viktor Krum, we award 41 points for use of Human Transfiguration, and for successfully rescuing your hostage with 7 minutes to spare."

"Harry Potter, we award 47 points for use of Polyjuice Potion, defeating the mysterious Kelpie, and for successfully recuing your hostage with 15 minutes to spare."

* * *

A few hundred miles away, in a hidden manor.

"My lord, the kelpie failed to capture the boy. In fact the reports show that the boy slew the creature!"

"This is most disconcerting. _CRUCIO._" Voldemort said. Nothing was going to plan. The boy is more powerful then he should be, but he still needed to be captured so he can regain his body.

"Very well, we have to enact our last plan. You say you can get someone to join us, someone who can be in position to capture the boy?"

"Yes" Umbridge said, still shaking after her brief exposure to the Cruciatus.

"Unda vermenti maxima" – maximum water spring

"Mico Congelo" –flash freeze

"Finite Mutatio" – cancel transformation


	13. Interlude

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

The aftermath of the task was to be expected. Rita Skeeter was exposed all over the papers. There was going to be a trial to see if she would serve any jail time for willingly stealing information of national importance, but she would have to pay the fine and do community service regardless for her illegal animagus status.

The tournament organizers gave a press release about the kelpie incident, and how it was placed in the lake illegally. The only people allowed to relocate kelpie are higher ups in the ministry, so naturally the ministry is in an uproar. The aurors who investigated the case found a large amount of compulsion potion in the kelpie's bloodstream and tissue. The minister admitted to signing the papers for a kelpie relocation, but denied knowing anything about where or the compulsion potion. Naturally, Fudge was getting a lot of howlers calling for his head.

Ministry politics aside, Harry was feeling pretty good. The next task isn't for a long time, and the event itself won't even be announced for another 2 months. And they will have a month of preparing once they are told what the task is.

Naturally Harry did what any normal boy in his position would do while waiting for the time to pass. He snogged Daphne for hours, trained for hours, and slept for hours. Schoolwork occurred when he had the time. He didn't have to take the finals anyway.

He decided to take care of the first order of business; gathering his allies. After the Kelpie attack, he wanted to make sure his allies were strong and could be relied on to protect his hide. Harry was obviously the most powerful of the group, and Daphne was second. She knew nearly all the normal spells that Harry did. She was just starting to get the hang of some of the minor elemental spells. Harry didn't want to get his books lost or stolen, so he made sure none of them could leave the chamber. It wouldn't do for an enemy to get that knowledge, so they were content to only studying and learning them in the chamber. Harry just had the uncanny ability of learning complex spells really fast, evidenced by the Patronus charm he learned in third year.

Harry set up a system to remotely open up the Chambers outer two doors. He set up two communication mirrors. The mirrors themselves had a password to operate, and Harry had dark detectors and foe glasses set up. It wouldn't do for someone to pry the information out of his friends head, and then polyjuice them to sneak in.

Harry's next order of business was having a nice long chat with the portrait of Salazar.

"Greetings snakemaster." Harry said.

The portrait snorted "Thanks for the flattery kid. What do you want?"

"I just want to talk. What do you know about Godric's Sword? It's magical properties and what not."

"Hmph well, it is Goblin made. Heavily enchanted of course. His heirs should be able to summon it instantly if it is close enough." He said this while counting on his fingers like he was going down a list. "Enchanted to do all sorts of nasty things against dark spells. Reflect them, absorb them, that sort of thing. You killed the Basilisk with it so it's inherent magic probably absorbed the venom making it ideal for destroying dark artifacts like Horcruxes."

"What?"

"Ah shit I shouldn't of said that"

"What are horcruxes?" Harry gritted his teeth.

"The Darkest of dark rituals. You were bound to find out about them eventually, seeing as they are most likely how Voldemort survived the killing curse." Salazar sighed.

"What exactly are they?"

"Simple really. They are pieces of your soul stored into a container. If you have a horcrux, your spirit remains bound to this plane, and you cannot be killed by conventional means, but your body will eventually die of old age. Then you just have to get a new body. Of course there are dark rituals to make your body last longer anyways."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Even I never made one, although I will admit I did study the process. It involves using the killing curse on an innocent human. The act of killing an innocent splits your soul. You then have speak the soulbinding incantation to bind your soul to a container. Then I suggest you hide the container so no one can ever find it, and live out the rest of your days to a ripe old age. If possible get a philosopher's stone..." He laughed at the second part. "Of course creating a philosophers stone involves capturing souls also."

"Are you telling me Nicolas Flamel killed innocents to create his stone?" Harry asked skeptically.

"Not at all boy. You don't need innocent souls for it. Flamel probably made a trip out to Azkaban and had life prisoners "donate their soul for magic", or stole souls from a dementor. The more souls you use the more potent the stone of course, but it is mostly trial and error. I'm not sure why I told you this…"

"Me either but thankfully I don't plan on making one. So do you have any theories on how _I_ survived the killing curse?" Harry asked.

"Of course. I am Salazar Slytherin you know. Have you even bothered to read my journals? I studied a lot of the oddities of magic…"

"No not yet" Harry sighed.

"Well it's simple really. Your mom stood in front of you when Voldemort went into the room. He asked her to "move aside you silly girl, I don't want to kill you." She declined, and he killed her. Then his curse bounced of you and back to him."

"I'm not following…"

"It was Voldemort's own fault really. He gave her a choice. She could die, or she could live. She chose to die. He didn't have to kill her, and he did it anyway. She essentially became a martyr to protect you. "

Harry thought he understood now. "So let me get this right. Voldemort gave her the choice to live, or the choice to die. She chose to die so I could live, magic took that literally, so I lived. However Voldemort had a horcrux so he lived also?"

"Correct. However there might be a problem. When his killing curse rebounded, his body was destroyed, and his soul split apart from when he killed your innocent mom. He didn't get a chance to do the ritual, so his soul latched onto the nearest living thing: you." Salazar stated with a cliffhanger.

Harry's jaw dropped. "What are you trying to say?"

"It is totally possible that you are one of His Horcrux's Harry, unintentional at that. How else could you of gained his parseltongue and other abilities?"

"Well that would explain a lot, but I don't like the idea of him having a piece of soul in me! How am I supposed to kill him if I have to kill myself to get the job done? And who knows how many horcruxes he has out there? And why hasn't Dumbledore told me any of this?

"Whoa kid, take a breath. I'll start with the last one first. Dumbledore probably suspects something of the sort, but he probably doesn't have a definite answer. I have a portrait in his office, and I know he has a ton of whirligigs and gizmos up there, some of which are there to monitor your health. The only one who knows how many horcruxes he has is Voldemort himself. Knowing him he definitely made more than one, but who knows what he stopped at. You did destroy one already you know."

"Really? Harry asked.

"His diary. His soul was possessing that little girl. If it succeeded I would imagine there could be two Voldemort's out there, a truly scary thought."

Harry shivered at the thought. "I stabbed it with a basilisk fang, so I guess the basilisk venom does destroy horcruxes. Are there any other ways?"

"You are right, and that is what makes Godric's sword especially capable. There are a few other ways to destroy a horcrux. One way would be fiendfyre. It is an infernally dark spell, and not for the weak of heart, and very hard to control. Another way would to exorcise the soul using a light ritual that is very complex. Naturally the Avada Kedavra can destroy the soul outright. Also causing damage severe enough to make the horcrux irreparable through magical means will render the horcrux useless. Essentially if you kill a living horcrux, it is destroyed, because you can't bring a living creature back from the dead."

"Right." Harry nodded his head. "Voldemort is a right bastard. Killing him permanently is going to be a right pain in the ass. Probably easier to just put him in a stasis and forget about him."

"Now that is thinking outside the box!"

"Thanks. I suppose I should think of a plan to claim Godric's sword from Dumbledore's mitts"

"Good luck."

Harry made his wayto his room. It would be nearly a month before he finally got an opportunity to sneak into Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore had to leave the school for a few hours for the trial of Rita Skeeter.

Harry made his way up to the gargoyle. The trial was reported to be at 10 AM, so that was when he arrived. He took out the marauders map, which told him the password was "Cherry Garcia" He quickly entered. He saw Salazar's portrait hanging in a dusty corner. Harry has never actually seen anyone in that portrait before.

"About time you showed up here." Salazar goaded.

"Oh shut up you."

Harry went over to the case holding the sword on the side of the room. He could tell the case was heavily warded. Harry though for a few minutes on a logical way to get it out. He opted on something Salazar would be proud of. First thing he cast the room into darkness, and casted a silencing ward. It wouldn't do for a portrait to tell of his exploits. He held his hand over the case. "The heir of Gryffindor returns to claim what is rightfully his!" Harry called in a strong voice. The sword glowed, then it appeared right into his outstretched hand. The wards were unaffected, Dumbledore would never know who took it.

Harry could feel the magic of the sword. It was nearly 4 feet long, and he estimated it weighed about 3 pounds. He was careful not to touch the blade, like most magical blades it had an ever sharp charm to go with its naturally sharpness of being goblin made, and it had the newly added benefit if being coated with basilisk venom. Basically if you didn't get sliced in half, you would die in a minute from the poison. Harry thought ahead and brought a dragon hide sheath with him. However carrying a sword around the school would be pretty obvious. He focused his willpower on the sword, and commanded it to shrink into a dagger. Surprisingly the sword compelled with ease. He shrank the sheath down also, and put it on his belt. He would have to gloat to Kingsley about his new possession.

Harry turned to leave, but he saw a sliver of light coming from a crack in one of the cabinets. Being the curious person he is, he went over to check it out. He opened the door, and inside was a stone basin with a glowing liquid in it. He looked at the liquid, he could see some sort of moving picture in it. It looked like some kind of trial. He could vaguely recall what he was seeing. It was the headmaster's pensieve, and it holds copies of memories for future viewing.

"Oh goody, Christmas has come early! The old man forgot to lock this thing up!" Harry quickly put his face into the liquid an emerged into the memory.

He appeared inside a courtroom, similar to the one Sirius was tried in. He looked around and saw rows of witches and wizards, all with somber looks on their faces. He saw Dumbledore, he looked as old as ever. He also saw Crouch, who looked very much like a man of power that Harry was told he once was. All the people were looking at the door.

As if on cue, the doors opened. In came a man, being escorted by dementors. He was placed in the chair, and the chair's chains snaked up around him, holding him in place. Harry took a closer look at the man, and to his surprise he recognized him.

It was Headmaster Karkaroff. Albeit it a much younger version, there was no signs of grey in his hair, but his clothes were a mess. Harry mused to himself. "Must be during Voldemort's era."

Harry watched the trial with interest. Karkaroff was giving out names of death eaters to save his ass from going to prison.

"Antonin Dolohov" was replied with "already captured"

"Evan Rosier" was replied with "dead" Harry noticed Moody talking with Dumbledore, and motioning to the missing piece of his nose.

"Travers!" "Mulciber!" "Rookwood" was replied with "Travers and Mulciber we have. Rookwood you say? Of the Department of Mysteries? Very well, you will be returned to Azkaban while we…" he was cut off.

"Wait I got more!" Karkaroff looked like he wanted to unleash a trump card. "Snape! Severus Snape!"

"Snape has been cleared by this council," said Crouch disdainfully. "He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore."

"No!" shouted Karkaroff, straining at the chains that bound him to the chair. "I assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!"

Dumbledore had gotten to his feet.

"I have given evidence already on this matter," he said calmly. "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am."

The scene shifted. Ludo Bagman was on trial this time, but he wasn't chained down. Bagman was under trial for passing information onto known Death Eaters.

"But I've told you, I had no idea!" Bagman called earnestly over the crowd's babble, his round blue eyes widening. "None at all! Old Rookwood was a friend of my dad's… never crossed my mind he was in with You-Know-Who! I thought I was collecting information for our side! And Rookwood kept talking about getting me a job in the Ministry later on… once my Quidditch days are over, you know… I mean, I can't keep getting hit by Bludgers for the rest of my life, can I?"

Bagman was eventually set free. No one voted for him to be imprisoned. In fact many people got up and started clapping, cheering over his recent Quidditch victory. Crouch look disgusted.

"Despicable," Mr. Crouch spat at Dumbledore, sitting down as Bagman walked out of the dungeon. "Rookwood get him a job indeed… The day Ludo Bagman joins us will be a sad day indeed for the Ministry…"

The memory shifted once again. This time 6 dementors came in, escorting 4 prisoners; 2 men, a woman, and a teenager.

Crouch stood up. He looked down upon the four in front of him, and there was pure hatred in his face.

"You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law," he said clearly, "so that we may pass judgment on you, for a crime so heinous -"

"Father," said the boy with the straw-colored hair. "Father… please…"

"- that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court," said Crouch, speaking more loudly, drowning out his son's voice.

"We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror - Frank Longbottom - and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named -"

"Father, I didn't!" shrieked the boy in chains below. "I didn't, I swear it. Father, don't send me back to the Dementors -"

"You are further accused," bellowed Mr. Crouch, "of using the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom's wife, when he would not give you information. You planned to restore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury -"

"Mother!" screamed the boy below, and the wispy little witch beside Crouch began to sob, rocking backward and forward. "Mother, stop him. Mother, I didn't do it, it wasn't me!"

"I now ask the jury," shouted Mr. Crouch, "to raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban!"

In unison, the witches and wizards along the right-hand side of the dungeon raised their hands. The crowd around the walls began to clap as it had for Bagman, their faces full of savage triumph. The boy began to scream. "No! Mother, no! I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't know! Don't send me there, don't let him!"

The Dementors were gliding back into the room. The boys' three companions rose quietly from their seats; the woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called, "The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!"

But the boy was trying to fight off the Dementors, even though Harry could see their cold, draining power starting to affect him. The crowd was jeering, some of them on their feet, as the woman swept out of the dungeon, and the boy continued to struggle.

"I'm your son!" he screamed up at Crouch. "I'm your son!"

"You are no son of mine!" bellowed Mr. Crouch, his eyes bulging suddenly. "I have no son!"

The wispy witch beside him gave a great gasp and slumped in her seat. She had fainted. Crouch appeared not to have noticed.

"Take them away!" Crouch roared at the Dementors, spit flying from his mouth. "Take them away, and may they rot there!"

"Father! Father, I wasn't involved! No! No! Father, please!"

Harry was paying close attention to Barty Jr. the whole time. He noticed that the man had a nervous twitch that the he still had when he was impersonating Moody. If only he saw this memory earlier.

The scene changed once again. This time he was not in a courtroom. Harry was dizzy at first, the memory was hazy. There were many separate scenes that lasted a few seconds each.

The first scene was of Barty Crouch Sr. and his wife over a cauldron. Harry noticed that it was polyjuice; he has brewed it twice now so he was able to recognize it.

The scene shifted quickly and this time he was inside a prison. "Must be Azkaban" Harry thought meekly to himself. He saw the woman putting her hair into the potion and giving it to Crouch Jr. who was in the jail cell. She then put some of Jr's hair into another potion. They both took the potion and did the old switcheroo.

The next few scenes all showed Crouch arriving at the cell to give his wife in disguise more polyjuice. Harry was unsure how long had passed before she died. She died and was buried under Jr's name on the island. The next scene was his wife's true funeral. He saw that the coffin was empty and that it was a staged funeral. She was already on her deathbed when they made the prison switch; it was her last dying wish for her son to live.

The next scene was inside a house, his son was being cared for by his elf, the same one who was at the world cup; named Winky. The next few scenes after that was Crouch reapplying the imperious curse. He was forced to wear an invisibility cloak at all times, and never to leave the elf's side.

Harry immediately recalled the day at the world cup. He saw the elf in the top box, and the seat next to it was empty. He figured that Jr. must have been sitting there under the cloak. He then remembered hearing from Ron that the elf was accused of throwing up the dark mark with his wand. Crouch must of stole the wand from Ron in the box and cast it himself. The mystery was coming together. He only needed to figure out how Crouch came in contact with the Dark Lord to be used in his failed plan.

The scene flashed by a few more times. Crouch Sr. was looking more haggard and distraught with each scene. His son was missing and he couldn't find him. The last memory he saw was one of the first task. There was a bright light and Crouch fell to the ground in a magical coma.

Harry emerged from the memory. He quickly checked his watch "Damn I was in there for 3 hours! I'm lucky Dumbledore hasn't come back yet. Very Very lucky!" he quickly put the pensieve back, door ajar like he found it. He undid the silencing spell, and put the light back in the room. He left as quickly as he could.

A week later Harry found himself training with Kingsley.

"Hey Shack, want to see my new sword?" Harry said.

"Sure kid."

Harry pulled out his dagger-sized sword of Gryffindor.

"Uh, it's a little small don't you think?" Kingsley laughed.

"Oh yeah." He applied a little magic into the sword and it shifted back into a longsword.

"Nice."

"Yeah just hold your sword in front of you and I'll show you what it can do." Harry said.

Harry swung and cleaved Kingsley's sword right in two.

"Holy Merlin!" Kingsley exclaimed.

"I present to you the sword of Godric Gryffindor." Harry said with a overdramatic flourish.

"Haha, Dumbledore was wondering where it went. He said it disappeared while he was at Skeeter's trial, but he said the protective wards were still intact. "

"Yeah, I didn't even touch the wards, I claimed the sword as its rightful heir, and it just appeared through the glass. You're not going to tell him are you?"

"Nah kid, your secret is safe with me. It's funny watching Dumbledore trying to solve an unsolvable mystery. Though it's a shame Rita only got 2 years of probation and her reporter license revoked, she knows information that could cost people their jobs, and even their life."

Harry nodded his agreement. "Let's just hope she doesn't spill all her secrets to the dark side."

Two weeks later the champions were all called down to Quidditch pitch, only all the grass was missing, and there was short bushes growing in rows. Harry saw that the 3 other champions were there, along with Ludo Bagman.

"Well, what d'you think?" said Bagman happily as Harry climbed over the last hedge. "Growing nicely, aren't they? Give them a month and Hagrid'll have them twenty feet high. Don't worry," he added, grinning, spotting the less than- happy expressions on Harry's and Cedric's faces, "you'll have your Quidditch field back to normal once the task is over! Now, I imagine you can guess what we're making here?"

"Christmas tree farm?" Harry guessed dryly. Everyone snickered.

"Maze?" offered Krum.

"Right you are!" exclaimed Bagman.

"The task is simple. The champions will be released at different times, according to their point standings. The Triwizard cup will be placed in the middle. The first champion to reach it wins! However, there will be all sorts of traps and creatures to trip you up. Not to mention the hedges themselves will move. And of course you got to watch out for the other champions! Naturally there will be adults patrolling outside of the maze. Send up red sparks if you get into trouble and one of us will get to you to get you out. Now if there's no questions, I'll see you all in one month for the task!"

Everyone shook their heads negative. Naturally the first order of business was to talk with Hermione and Daphne and come up with a plan. He decided to invite all 5 of his friends down into the chamber to discuss the task.

After explaining the task to the group, Harry opened up the discussion. "Where should we start?"

Hermione offered "Well they will probably only use stuff that's found on the school's curriculum. So we should go over the creatures that Hagrid has shown us."

"Right." Daphne agreed. "Well Hagrid has been showing us those blast-ended skrewts all year long, so I guess those would be an obvious choice."

Everyone nodded their heads. One of the twins added. "Well Hagrid showed our class some cool stuff this year. He showed us an acromantula from the forest, and he had a Middle Eastern man bring in a sphinx."

"Hmm, I know a little about the giant spiders, but you're going to have to tell me about the sphinx" Harry said. The twins nodded their heads.

They spent the next hour going over possible useful spells for conquering a maze.

The month went by in much of the same; a lot of researching obscure, but useful, spells. Sadly, there wasn't going to be any help from potions this time. Harry did manage to forget about any potential Voldemort plots, which would bite him in the ass. All of his friends were being swamped my homework and studying for their finals, so Harry was left to his own devices most of the time.

Finally the task was upon him. It was going to take place at night. He made sure his basilisk armor was serviceable, but he wasn't planning on taking his sword; he didn't anticipate the need to reveal it.

He made his way down the pitch to where the other 3 champions were, and Bagman was standing at a podium. Harry saw that the bushes of the maze were now 20 feet tall. The students and family members started to fill the stands. Bagman told the teachers to start their patrolling. Hagrid, Shack, McGonagall and Flitwick would be patrolling. Percy brought the cup to the middle of the maze. There were Aurors in the stands, but Harry couldn't spot Sirius.

"Right." Ludo Bagman started. "The first whistle Harry will go in. Second whistle will be Viktor. Third will be Cedric. Fourth will be Fleur. There will be 10 minutes in between each whistle. Everyone stands a chance, there will be less obstacles as the other champions clear them. Here we go."

Bagman blew the whistle. "Harry Potter has entered the maze!"


	14. Third Task

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

Harry walked up the entrance of the maze. Harry needed to see where the cup was. Harry couldn't fly, so he had to settle for the next best thing; he transfigured a tall ladder. He climbed up the ladder and took one look at the maze. It was large, and it looked like everything was moving. However he couldn't see too many of the obstacles as they were obscured from view. Harry noticed that there was a large gap in the middle of the maze, that's where he assumed the cup was.

Harry banished his ladder and ran headfirst into the maze. The entrance path went straight ahead for about 100 feet. He ran right up to the end and yelled "Reducto!" The wall was unscathed. He then tried "Incendio!" The leaves wouldn't catch on fire. "Heavily warded of course, wouldn't want us to go straight through". Harry took the left path.

Harry ran along, and all of a sudden the floor dropped away from, into a pit. Harry was hanging from the side, and slowly pulled himself up. He looked into the pit and saw a large Devil's Snare. Harry continued.

Harry made a turn, and saw fire being emitted from the ground from several different spots. "Looks like a pattern."

Harry was trying to figure out the pattern to get across when he heard "Cedric Diggory has entered the maze!"

Harry discovered the simple pattern; he had to wait for the fire ahead of him to flare up twice before continuing. Harry slowly made his way through the flame traps. He took a right at the next path. He started running down the path when he felt the hedges starting to close in on him. He stopped running and the hedges stopped also. He continued running, and they kept getting closer. Eventually he was stuck, the only way was back.

However Harry had an idea. "The hedges may be warded, but the ground isn't!"

"Calx Ingorgito!" Harry pointed his wand and shot the stone gouging jinx at the ground. The dirt got blasted away. He fired a dozen more and had a tunnel under the hedge, barely wide enough for his frame. He emerged from the other side and filled the tunnel with water.

Harry heard a clicking sound from behind him. He turned around and saw one of Hagrid's giant blast-ended skrewts in all its glory. It was advancing at him. Harry shot a blasting curse at it, but it was deflected off it carapace.

As Harry started to fight the hybrid, he heard "Viktor Krum has entered the maze!"

Harry sent his fireball/freeze charm at the skrewt. It hit, started to cook, and then started to freeze. However the skrewt wasn't completely frozen, just very chilled, and was still coming towards Harry very slowly. He used aquamenti to cover the thing with more water, and froze it again, this time for good. Harry then sent the stone cleaving curse at the frozen animal and it completely shattered.

Harry continued on and took a right turn. In front of him was some sort of haze. Harry could tell it was some sort of enchantment, but he couldn't dispel it with anything he knew. So he walked into it, and immedietly he turned upside down. Harry was momentarily disoriented, but he just took the plunge and continued to walk, and eventually the world righted itself. Harry ran forward a few dozen feet.

He heard "Fleur Delacour has entered the maze" as he came towards a junction. He heard footsteps and turned around. Cedric approached him out of breath.

"Just ran into an acromantula that way…" he huffed.

"I just took out a skrewt, the thing was massive!" Harry panted.

Cedric nodded and they parted. Cedric took the middle, Harry took the far right.

He ran forward and saw what looked to be a waterfall, except that the water was falling up into the sky. Not willing to ponder on it, just froze the waterfall, shattered it, and quickly jumped over it before it could start back up. He continued walking. He turned a corner and saw a marsh in front of him. He started to walk carefully through it. He saw pieces of wood in it, and all of a sudden one bit him.

"Damn Dugbog!" he said kicking the animal away. He could see at least 5 more. He quickly ran as fast as he could through the swamp, and just used banishing charms to knock them over the hedge.

He followed the path straight ahead, and all of a sudden heard a female scream "Fleur must be in trouble! Wonder what it is?" He didn't see any red sparks, so she was either fine, or incapacitated. He didn't have time to dwell.

Harry traveled for about 15 minutes without encountering anything. Then out of the nowhere a reddish black spell raced pace his head. He turned around and saw Krum advancing on him.

"Crucio!" Krum said in a voice that wasn't his. Harry had to dodge the reddish black torture curse again.

"Damnit I was afraid of this. Someone has imperiused him!" Harry thought to himself. Harry waved his wand at the hedges and vines shot out grabbing onto Krum. He disarmed him before Krum can do anything else. He shot up Red sparks over Krum. He quickly continued on his. "Been in here for nearly 2 hours, how much longer?"

Harry turned a bend and saw a spectacular creature, one of the creatures the twins told him about.

It was a sphinx. It had the body of an over-large lion: great clawed paws and a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft. Its head, however, was that of a woman. She turned her long, almond-shaped eyes upon Harry as he approached. He raised his wand, hesitating. She was not crouching as if to spring, but pacing from side to side of the path, blocking his progress. Then she spoke, in a deep, hoarse voice.

"You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me."

"So… so will you move, please?" said Harry, knowing what the answer was going to be.

"No," she said, continuing to pace. "Not unless you can answer my riddle. Answer on your first guess - I let you pass. Answer wrongly - I attack. Remain silent – I will let you walk away from me unscathed."

"Hmmm, I'm no Ravenclaw, but I should be able to handle it. I could just kill it too" Harry thought to himself

"Okay," he said. "Can I hear the riddle?"

The sphinx sat down upon her hind legs, in the very middle of the path, and recited:

"First think of the person who lives in disguise,

Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.

Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,

The middle of middle and end of the end?

And finally give me the sound often heard

During the search for a hard-to-find word.

Now string them together, and answer me this,

Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?"

Harry gaped at her.

"Could I have it again… more slowly?" he asked tentatively. She blinked at him, smiled, and repeated the poem. "All the clues add up to a creature I wouldn't want to kiss?" Harry asked.

She merely smiled her mysterious smile.

Harry took that for a "yes."

Harry cast his mind around. There were plenty of animals he wouldn't want to kiss; his immediate thought was a Blast-Ended Skrewt, but something told him that wasn't the answer. He'd have to try and work out the clues…

"A person in disguise," Harry muttered, staring at her, "who lies… er… that'd be a - an impostor. No, that's not my guess! A - a spy? I'll come back to that… could you give me the next clue again, please?"

She repeated the next lines of the poem.

"'The last thing to mend,'" Harry repeated. "Er… no idea… 'middle of middle'… could I have the last bit again?"

She gave him the last four lines.

"'The sound often heard during the search for a hard-to-find word,'" said Harry. "Er… that'd be… er… hang on - 'er'! Er's a sound!"

The sphinx smiled at him.

"Spy… er… spy… er…" said Harry, pacing up and down. "A creature I wouldn't want to kiss… a spider!"

The sphinx smiled more broadly. She got up, stretched her front legs, and then moved aside for him to pass.

"Thanks!" said Harry, and, amazed at his own brilliance, he dashed forward.

The path in front of Harry went on for a few hundred feet in a straight line. "This must be it!" Harry broke out into a run. He could see the cup in the distance.

Then from in front of him Cedric appeared about 25 feet ahead. Cedric turned his head around and saw Harry giving chase, but he only sped up.

As Cedric was turned around, he didn't see the giant spider appear from the hedge, and Cedric was going to run right into his pincers. Harry, thinking quick, turned the path into ice right in front of Cedric. It was a dirty trick, but it probably saved Cedric his life. Cedric slid on his back right under the pincers.

Seeing the giant Acromantula advancing on him now, Harry conjured a gust of wind, and picked up a bunch of leaves in the air. The leaves started to spin real fast through the air, and Harry banished them right at the spider. They were like razors, and cut right into the beast.

Cedric, seeing that Harry just saved his ass, got up and started to fire blasting hexes at it. Under their combined fire the acromantula retreated through the hedge. They walked up to each other. "Thanks" they both said at the same time.

"Did you hear Fleur scream? " Harry asked.

"Yeah" Cedric offered. "She was being attacked by Krum, I helped drive him away."

"I got blindsided by him. He cast crucio twice at me." Cedric looked astonished. "He was under the imperius."

"What!" Cedric exclaimed.

"Yeah his voice wasn't his own, and his eyes were glazed over. I disarmed him and bound him, then shot up the flare." Harry said.

Cedric nodded. They both walked over towards the cup.

"You take it." Harry offered. "You are the true Hogwarts champion. I am only here because of a crazy man."

"No, Harry you saved my ass from the spider, you take it."

"Together?" Harry asked.

"Sure" Cedric relented. They both ran up to the cup, and grabbed it at the same time. The cup glowed blue, and before they realized it, the portkey took them away.

They arrived in heap of limbs. They looked around. "It looks like a graveyard. Oh shit there's people over there next to that cauldron."

"Anyone tell you the cup was a portkey?" Cedric groaned. Harry nodded his head negative.

Sure enough, there were 3 people standing next to the cauldron. There was a man with no arm. Harry recognized him. "Barty Crouch Jr. is over there! This can't be good. The second one is a woman, but she looks more like a toad, I don't recognize her. The third…he looks familiar. Damn it's Lucius Malfoy. I always knew that guy was evil." Harry stopped talking when he saw them turn is his direction. He noticed Malfoy was holding on to a bundle.

The woman spoke up. "Ah Potter, how nice of you to join us. And you bought a friend, how nice."

Then a voice spoke up. "Bind the boy. Kill the spare. Lucius and Barty, prepare me for the ritual." The voice sounded like it was coming from the bundle in Lucius's arms. The two men turned around and started working with the cauldron. Before Harry could react, ropes sprouted from the statue behind Harry and pulled him in tight. Cedric looked on in horror.

"AVADA KEDAVRA" the toad woman yelled. A flash of green light shot towards Cedric.

"NO!" Harry shouted. He motioned with his hand, and he tried to use a wandless banishing spell. The colorless spell raced from his hand. From his angle he saw that it worked. Cedric collided with the statue behind him, knocking him unconscious. The killing curse missed him by inches and collided with the top of the stone, shattering it.

From the toad-woman's angle, it looked like a direct hit, and the boy's body broke the stone with the impact. "It is done my lord."

"Good Delores. Start the ritual." The two men lowered the bundle into the cauldron.

"Let Him drown, please god, just this once, let him drown!" He prayed to himself.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" Delores chanted. Harry noticed dust rising from the ground between his feet. She levitated it into the cauldron, it glowed blue.

"Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master!" She walked over to Crouch Jr. "Your payment for your failure." she whispered into his ear. He nodded. She didn't have the dark mark- yet, so she wouldn't be the best candidate to fulfill the "flesh of the servant" part.

Barty held out his remaining hand, and lifted up his head with pride. "Do it." She obliged, and cut off his hand. It fell into the cauldron. Harry was extremely disgusted and nearly vomited. The cauldron glowed bright red.

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe!" Delores chanted once more. She walked over to Harry, and pulled out another knife, and a vial. Harry was struggling, but for all he was worth he couldn't do anything. She drew a long gash down his arm, and collected the blood in the vial. She then walked back to the cauldron and poured it in.

Steam started to bellow out of the cauldron. Out of the mist rose a figure. He said one thing.

"Robe me."

Harry was looking at the newly reborn Dark Lord Voldemort. Staring back at him were deep haunted red eyes, and a snake like nose with no nostrils. He then took time to examine his own body. Long spindly fingers examined his pasty white self. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a wand, and aimed it at Crouch. He levitated him in front of himself.

"My lord, you promised…" Crouch groaned.

"Yes I did." Voldemort said. "The faithful shall be rewarded." He pulled up the sleeve on his remaining arm, and saw the Dark Mark. He pressed his wand up against it, and Crouch whimpered in pain. Harry's scar was aching, even through his occlumency shields. Voldemort's wand flashed briefly.

"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"

He began to pace up and down before Harry and his three followers, eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Harry again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.

"You stand, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father," he hissed softly. "A Muggle and a fool… very much like your dear mother." He paused for a second.

"But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child… and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death…"

Voldemort laughed again. Up and down he paced, looking all around him as he walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.

"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was… He didn't like magic, my father…"

"He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage… but I vowed to find him… I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name… Tom Riddle…"

Still he paced, his red eyes darting from grave to grave.

"Listen to me, reliving family history…" he said quietly, "why, I am growing quite sentimental… But look, Harry! My true family returns…"

Harry then heard the telltale signs of apparition all around. He heard the swishing of cloaks, and figures dressed in black robes and white masks slowly emerged from the mist. They all approached their master and bent down to kiss his robes, and back up and formed a circle, they kept kneeling.

He didn't say anything for about 5 minutes. Once he was satisfied that everyone who was going to show up, did, he spoke.

"Welcome, My Death Eaters. It has been 13 years, 13 long years since we last gathered. Surely you did not think I was dead? I have gone farther than any other, delved deeper in to magic than any other, to conquer death! Here I am as proof!"

"I smell guilt. Some of you did truly think that I was gone. Why has no one searched for me? Some of you pleaded innocence, or the imperious, hoping to fade back into society?"

"They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living?"

"And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort… perhaps they now pay allegiance to another… perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore?"

"In fact, it was not a Death Eater who discovered me, as a spirit, in the woods of Albania. In fact, it was the Senior Undersecretary to Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge himself, Delores Umbridge. I did not have to convince her at all. Her beliefs are very similar to mine, and she was more than happy to assist me in my second rise to power. For her faithfulness, I present you the newest member of my inner circle. Delores come forth and take my mark!"

Umbridge did so without thinking twice, in fact she looked giddy with excitement. Voldemort raised her sleeve and pressed his wand into her arm. She bit back a scream. From his wand a mark could now be seen on her forearm. "It is beautiful my lord!" she bent down and kissed his robes.

"She was not alone in helping me however. Being in such a high position, she knew who my sympathizers were in the ministry. Lucius here, the always faithful, has found himself in quite a lot of power in the government. Lucius has been spreading the seeds of doubt within the government for years, bribing when necessary. Umbridge went to him immedietly once I was discovered. Between the two of them, they slowly shifted the power in the government. There are many there who may be willingly, or unwillingly," he added with a smile, "ready to join the cause. We also have Barty Crouch Jr. here, essentially thought dead for years. He would play the essential role I need for my rebirth. He shall be rewarded."

Voldemort went over to the quivering form of Crouch. Voldemort lifted him up with one hand, and pointed his wand at the freshly stumped arm. Silver stated coming out of his wand and slowly formed into a hand. The hand then joined with the rest of Crouch's arm. "Thank you my Lord! You are truly kind."

"I will not be as kind with you other arm. Let that be a reminder of your failure."

"I understand my lord, you are more than fair."

"Onto the next order of business; roll call if you will." Voldemort smiled. "Who has answered the call, and who will be eliminated for disobedience?"

Voldemort started pacing the circle. There was a lot of gaps. "Avery…" was all he said to the first man.

"The Lestrange's should be here. They are in Azkaban. They are faithful, and they will be retrieved, along with the other faithful." He said when he walked past a large gap.

"Macnair…I shall find you some better victims to slay than the creatures the ministry is giving you."

"Thank you my lord."

"Crabbe" he scoffed "And Goyle… you will do better this time."

"And same with you Nott." He sneered

"And here we have five missing Death Eaters… three dead in my service. One, too cowardly to return… he will pay. And one, who I believe has left me forever… he will be killed, of course… and heerewe have Crouch. He was the one who cast the Dark Mark at the World Cup, and it was because of that that Umbridge discovered you under your father's imperious."

Harry spoke up for the first time. "Who is responsible for me being here?!"

"Yes," said Voldemort, a grin curling his lipless mouth as the eyes of the circle flashed in Harry's direction. "Harry Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guest of honor. To answer your question, it was a servant of Delores's here. I didn't bother remembering his name, but his whole family is a bunch of blood traitors, it seems one of them finally grew a brain." He said with a smile.

"Percy Fucking Weasley, I'm going to kill him!" It dawned at him that Percy was the one to place the cup. The twins did warn about him.

"You will do no such thing. You will die tonight! And he will be rewarded with my mark!"

One of His servants inquired about how he survived, and the tale was pretty much what Harry expected, including how he survived because Voldemort gave his mother the choice of getting killed for him, or living. He didn't mention the specifics of Horcrux's though.

"Now see boy, I have your blood in my veins, that means I will not be defeated the same way as I was three years ago. Now I believe you owe me a proper duel. Crucio!" he pointed his wand at Harry.

Harry screamed out in agony, like he was being skinned alive.

"Give the boy his wand, I will show you all that he survived on a fluke alone all those years ago!"

Umbridge tossed Harry his wand- his holly wand. He briefly wondered where his custom wand was, then he saw it was still in his holster- he put it there when he grabbed the cup, and he remembered arriving with just his holly wand out!

"Now, we bow. Bow to death" Voldemort said. Harry felt a strong compulsion charm, but did not bow. "Defiant to the end I see. Imperio!"

Harry felt a strong voice in his head telling him to bow, and it took all his will power to ignore it. "Very well. Crouch did tell me that you were able to fight it, but no matter. Now we fight!"

"Crucio!" Voldemort said, his wand moved fast, very fast, and Harry was on the ground once again. "That didn't hurt, did it?" he laughed.

"Reducto!" Harry said from the ground, but Voldemort deflected it.

"Artus Frendo!" Harry sent the bone crushing curse at the Dark Lord's head, but he dodged it.

"Well look at this! Potter knows some dark tricks!" Voldemort goaded. "Good, Good!"

"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort sent the killing curse at Harry, and he quickly dodged it. He didn't want to tempt fate again.

"Avada Kedavra!" Harry was expecting it this time and quickly levitated a tombstone in front of the spell.

"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort bellowed once again, and Harry transfigured the remains of the tombstone into a table, and sent the table at the spell., and then sent the remains at Voldemort.

"Cruer Fervidus" Voldemort switched it up by casting a blood boiling hex at Harry, but Harry did know the counter to it. "It seems the boy may have a little bit of skill. Very well!"

Before Voldemort could finish his taunt, Harry sent a fireball/freezecharm at Voldemort, He countered the fireball, but the freeze part hit him. However it didn't last long enough because Harry was still using his holly wand.

Voldemort was pissed off that he actually got hit, and roared once again "Avada Kedavra!", and Harry ducked once again. Voldemort started to lay off the Killing Curse a little bit, since it does take a lot of energy, and even a Dark Lord as great as him will get tired after casting it a dozen times in 5 minutes. Voldemort started sending other dark curses at him instead, the kind that Harry wouldn't touch.

"Corona Adhaero!" Harry watched as the super fast skull splitting spell missed him by inches. It was followed up quickly by a silent blasting curse.

Harry tried to take the passive aggressive approach by causing the ground to become quicksand, vines to entangle him, ice to make him slip, but he had yet to catch the dark lord. He waved his wand and the sand from the quicksand flew up in the air from the wind he conjured, and he quickly cast the stone cleaving spell, which nicked the Dark Lord's arm.

"You drew blood! You will pay for this!" The dark lord was furious, and if you could call what he was doing before fighting, he was now on a rampage. Harry could do nothing but dodge, and he eventually got hit by a crucio.

Harry was laying on the ground. He was thinking about pulling out some of his elemental spells, but he needed an opening. He was also very tired and all the magic being used was very draining. However Voldemort had a different idea.

"Avada Kedavra!" He screamed at Harry, who did the first thing he thought of.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry sent the disarming spell, and it collided with the green death curse.

The two spells seemed to connect with each other and their wands. Golden beams of energy shot out from the connection, and started to form a dome over the two interlocked battlers. "Do nothing!" Voldemort screamed to his Death Eaters.

Harry noticed the connection point of the two spells started to move down towards his side. He was doing his hardest to force them back towards Voldemort, and it was slowly working. His wand was vibrating very hard, and he could see sweat forming on Voldemort's brow (or lack of). Slowly Voldemort forced the bead back towards Harry, but he couldn't stop it this time. Harry had to think quick or get hit by the spell. He opted for thinking quick.

Harry pulled one hand off his extremely vibrating holly wand, and pulled out his custom wand. "Diffinda Bombarda!" He sent a barrage of cutting curses at Voldemort. The most the spell would do would give Voldemort a bunch of paper cuts, and create a distraction. Harry did get the distraction; Voldemort looked shocked and held his other arm up to his face. Harry quickly broke of the wand connection, and immedietly teleported behind Voldemort before the killing curse would hit him.

Voldemort didn't see where Harry went to, but he didn't look behind himself until it was too late. "Virtus Vox Nex" Harry whispered into his ear. The blue colored life snuffing hex hit the Dark Lord at point blank range, and it was effective.

Voldemort collapsed, but Harry saw something that he hoped wouldn't happen. He saw wisps of black smoke form above the body. It was like he remembered from first year. Voldemort was taking spirit form again.

Harry was watching what the Death Eaters were doing. He picked up the general conversation. "The boy killed him again!"

"He is not dead, he is a spirit again!"

"Look you can see It! He can't be defeated!"

"Yeah we can just resurrect him again."

"Quickly, get the boy before he escapes!"

Harry saw the spirit in front of him, but it was too late. The spirit went to latch onto the closest person, and that just happened to be Harry. Harry felt a darkness inside himself latching out onto the spirit in front of him. He felt the inner darkness of his mind, and his scar connection deep down. Voldemort was latching onto it and pulling it out at the same time. He was trying to completely take control over Harry.

It was then that he remembered the words of Salazar from that day in the chamber. "It is totally possible that you are one of His Horcrux's Harry, unintentional at that. How else could you of gained his parseltongue and other abilities?"

Harry was trying to think of anything to stop the incoming darkness. Harry was on his knees screaming his lungs out and clutching his head. Just about when he lost all hope, something snapped from inside of him. He started to feel another overwhelming force inside his mind, and it started to eject Voldemort's presence.

Harry started to glow white. Harry was on all fours vomiting on the ground. His light was becoming blinding, and he saw the darkness emerging from him, almost like a smoke. Eventually it formed back into a cloud, twice as large as it was before.

The Death Eaters, noticing that Voldemort's possession failed, opened fire on the glowing Harry. It was no use. Every spell they threw at him just bounced off.

It felt like an eternity to Harry. Harry's glowing white form started to shift. His body got larger, nearly twice as long. His weight increased, his muscle bulked, he grew a tail, and vicious talonlike claws. He felt his head shift, and fangs growing in his mouth.

The glowing died down, and standing in all its imposing glory, was Harry in his second animagus form. A Nundu, the King of Kings, the greatest Magical Creature in the world. It takes more than 100 wizards to subdue one, and not even a basilisk stare can kill it. Its toxic breathe can wipe out villages. Its bite will leave it's toxin in your veins and you will die in hours, but not before paralyzing within the first few minutes. The aftereffects of its bite are largely irrelevant; because you are mostly like in its stomach by the time its mouth is near you, if it doesn't just cleave you in half outright. Its skin is extremely tough, and it takes extreme measures to puncture it, not unlike a basilisk. It can sprint damn near close to 100 miles per hour.

The first thing Harry noticed in his new form was his eyesight. It was similar to his snake form, but he saw in full color. He also noticed everyone in the area had the red aura of an enemy. He lunged at the first person he saw.

"Oh shit!" was all Lucius Malfoy got to say before Voldemort's right hand man exploded in a fountain of gore.

Harry noticed that he was fast, very fast. He cleared the distance to Malfoy in under a second. He exploded Malfoy so fast that the blood didn't even have time to touch him.

Harry swiped his paw at the next closest death eater. It connected with the man's arm and severed it at the shoulder. Harry noticed it was Barty Crouch Jr. He pitied the man who just lost an arm for the third time, so he opted to let him bleed out instead of ending him then. Harry scored 5 more kills before the Death Eaters got the smart idea an apparated out. Sadly he got no more inner circle members.

Harry transformed back, and he was hurting. He quickly searched for the cup, and saw it was laying about 10 feet away from Cedric, who was still alive thankfully. He grabbed Cedric, and then grasped the cup. He saw the blue glow and felt the pull of the portkey.

Harry appeared back at the task, with Cedric's unconscious form, and the cup.

Dumbledore spoke up "My boy what happened?"

"Portkey…graveyard… Voldemort reborn…Death Eaters everywhere!" Harry gasped out.

"Oh dear, let us get you up to my office to talk about this…"

"NO!" Harry shouted. "I need to talk to the head of the DMLE right now!"

"Surely that is not necessary…" Dumbledore said.

"You don't understand how far the corruption has spread. I need to talk to Madam Bones now! She is the only one who can help. The ministry is being converted by Death Eaters as we speak! This is frankly beyond you Dumbledore. It is a lot worse then we all thought." Harry said grimly.


	15. Aftermath

Disclaimer: I own none of this, The HP universe and character was created by JKR.

"Oh my god, is Cedric dead?!" The question started to spread though the riled crowed. The 2 boys disappeared nearly an hour ago, with no trace of where they went. And when they appeared, Cedric wasn't moving.

Harry quickly cast an enervate on Cedric before the rumors got out of hand.

"Ow man I felt like I got hit by a ton of bricks." Cedric groaned.

"You did, I knocked you away from the killing curse and you smashed into a tombstone."

"So uh, what happened after that?"

"Well, everything. One of the Aurors is off to get Madam Bones, I only want to tell the story once. You can come, you were there. Bottom line was that the foul toad lady performed a ritual and Voldemort was reborn."

Cedric grasped.

"I don't want to say too much right now, we don't know who we can trust. Bones is the highest up ministry official that isn't corrupted. Voldemort is going to try to subtlety convert the government to his cause before going on mass killing sprees. " Harry said. At this moment of time, Madam Bones appeared flanked by 2 aurors, one was Sirius, and the other was Gawain Robards, senior auror, and Sirius's current mentor.

"I am intrigued by the story you got to tell. You say it's a matter of national security? Very well do you have a place in mind?" Amelia asked.

"Padfoot's Palace. Er, Sirius's castle."

"Good enough, lets go. I assume that Cedric is coming too?"

"Yeah, he was there for the beginning."

"Very well." Sirius pulled out a portkey to and they all touched it, and whizzed off to the castle.

"Dobby!" Sirius called.

"How can Dobby serve master?" the excited house elf said.

"I need my pensieve. And we could use some snacks and refreshments." Sirius ordered.

"It shall be done."

Dobby appeared about a minute later with a pensieve. It looked antique, and it had the Black Family crest on it. It was smaller than Dumbledore's but still impressive. Another elf appeared with a tray of food and refreshments.

"I estimate that the events took about an hour. Much of what you see should not leave this room." Harry said. He put his wand up to his temple, and began concentrating on the memory he wanted to share. Slowly he could feel the memory copying onto the tip of his wand. After about 5 minutes he had a large ball of silvery substance hanging from his wand. He put the memory into the pensieve.

"Everyone in."

The memory started right after Harry got passed the sphinx. It showed him and Cedric both grabbing the cup and being portkeyed to the graveyard.

Amelia Bones gasped when she saw the three figures. "Delores Umbridge! She is second in power only to the Minister! And Lucius! I always knew that his defense of being imperiused was a load of bull! Not good at all." She ground out.

The all gasped when Harry saved Cedric from the killing curse, and Cedric let go a sign of relief when Umbridge didn't notice her curse missed.

They all watched in horrid fascination at Voldemort being reborn. "Oh dear!" Cedric vomited when Barty willingly had his hand cut off.

Next was Voldemort giving his speech, and calling his Death Eaters to him. "Quick" Amelia said. "Identify as many as possible!" Sirius and Robards went to each figure. There was about 20 of them. Amelia was writing down all the names the Voldemort was calling out.

They all witness Umbridge taking the mark. "Disgusting." Summed up their feelings.

They saw Harry come to the revelation that Percy Weasley was the one who set up the portkey and imperiused Krum. "Oh Merlin! The Weasley's aren't going to like this at all. Percy's gone dark! I wonder how many others have been corrupted?" Amelia stated.

The watched as Harry and Voldemort began to fight. Sirius look intrigued, but they all grimaced when Harry got hit by two crucio's.

Everyone watched the duel in shocked awe. "Merlin! That man sure has a soft spot for the killing curse."

"Yeah, he probably used it 25 times."

"Wow"

A few seconds later. "Nice bone crushing curse kid. Of course He just laughed at it. "

Sirius actually pumped his fist when Harry hit Voldemort with his fireball freezer. "Shame it only just pissed him off."

Amelia nodded her approval when Harry switched gears and with his passive aggressive approach. "You could make a great auror one day."

"You kidding me?" Sirius said. "He has lasted longer than any of us probably would."

Amelia nodded sadly in agreement. "The department hasn't been the same since the war."

They then saw Harry nick the dark lord with a spell and draw blood, and immedietly go on a rampage. They saw Harry getting dominated, and then his disarming spell connect with the killing curse.

"Wow" they all said as they watch the golden net form.

"It's the brother wand effect." Robards offered. "I saw it once before in Egypt. When two wands with the same core from the same animal fight each other, this effect can happen."

"So your holly wand shares the same core as the dark lords?" Sirius asked "Why weren't you using your custom wand?"

"Both our wands have a feather from Dumbledore's phoenix. I honestly didn't have time to draw my other wand. The action was really fast pace and I was doing all I could to survive. Plus the adrenaline was pumping. I simply forgot." He said lamely

They then saw Harry pull out his second wand, shoot the cutting curse bombardment and teleport behind the dark lord.

"Wow!" Everyone said when Harry used a spell that made the Dark Lord keel over. "You killed him!"

"No, he can't be killed yet. Just watch. And I will explain after."

They all noticed the Death Eaters pointing a dark mist. They heard what the Death Eaters were saying. "It's our lord. He is a spirit!"

They saw Voldemort's spirit form above the body and attack Harry. They couldn't really tell what was happening inside Harry so he tried to describe the feeling. They then saw the Dark Lords spirit get expelled and the Death Eaters starting to attack Harry. Harry however began to glow.

"Oh pup! Great timing on going through your first animagus shift!" Sirius said. "We got to come up with a codename."

"It was the inner animal that saved me from Voldemort's spirit" Harry added.

They watched as Harry slowly turned into a large cat. Amelia was the only one who knew it was.

"Oh my! A nundu!" she was clutching her chest as if having a heart attack. Her demeanor quickly changed when Lucius turned into a gory puddle. They watched as Harry tore into Death Eaters, but they quickly disapparated. Harry grabbed Cedric and left. The memory ended.

"So you killed Voldemort again. But he is not really dead?"

"Tell me, what do you know about Horcruxes?" Harry asked.

No one answered. "They are containers that hold pieces of soul. Voldemort has split is soul several times and has several Horcruxes. While these Horcruxes exist, He cannot be killed." Everyone gasped. "No one has ever made more than one before, except for him. I have already destroyed two, the journal that triggered the chamber of secrets incident, and the piece from inside me." Harry then explained how he got a piece of His soul inside of him, and how it got ejected at the graveyard.

"Chances are that Voldemort could possess one of his death eaters, and could be undergoing another ritual to return him. His horcruxes must be destroyed so he can be killed, but I am clueless as what or where they could be. In the mean time it is imperative that the ministry be purged of the infection.

Amelia nodded in agreement. "The ministry has been slowly falling into decay for years. It seems that it comes down to me to do something about it, and I will. "

"So what was that spell that you hit Voldemort with?"

"It was a killing curse, an ancient one. It kills the body, instead of the soul. The Avada Kedavra can kill souls, and horcruxes, but I didn't want to take the chance of having it rebound on me. He did have my blood in his veins."

A few minutes of discussion later Amelia spoke up. "Cedric, would you be interested in joining the Academy? I was quite impressed with what you did in the tasks. You can go through some training during the summer, and learn the desk procedures during the year."

"I'd love to!" Cedric said. "I want some payback for tonight!"

"Now that that is out of the way, I suggest we all take wizard oaths to not reveal anything that was said today unless given permission by Harry." They all nodded their agreement and took the oath.

Everyone left other than Harry and Amelia.

"Now I have an idea on what I can do for you." She reached into her bag and pulled out a few pouches. "You showed that you were very capable tonight. And a nundu animagus, simply unheard of!"

"To be honest, I was severely outclassed by Voldemort. In a straight up duel he would win every time. However I had the luxury of being underestimated and lucky, and sometimes that's enough."

"You have skills that many in my department would be envious of. Normally you would have to go through the ropes, but being the head of the department has its perks." Amelia grinned while passing two badges over to Harry. Harry picked them up.

The first badge read "Unspeakable- Omega Level Secrets"

"That badge means you don't have to reveal anything to anyone, except for me and the head of the Department of Mysteries." She grinned. "It's only an honorary title, so you don't have any actual clearance. I wouldn't try to snoop around. It just prevents other from snooping into your business. Omega level is the highest clearance, the minister can't even look at your file now. You are immune from prosecution of having illegal animagus forms, and having multiple wands, among other things."

Harry picked up the second badge "Auror-Hitwizard" Harry looked up questioningly.

"Again it's just an honorary title. It gives you clearance to use deadly force when needed, and the use of unforgivables. I am essentially giving you carte blanche to deal with Death Eaters as you see fit, with proper evidence of course. You will not be put on active duty, since you are only an honorary member."

They started talking about the crisis in the ministry. "It's going to be a political battle of wills. Dumbledore is only the head of the Wizengamot. He doesn't actually work for the Ministry, so there is not much he can actually do but offer his support."

They ended their meeting. Harry decided to bite the bullet and talk with Dumbledore. He grabbed his floo powder, and announced "Headmasters Office, Hogwarts!" and stuck his head in to ask Dumbledore for a meeting. Dumbledore agreed and Harry went through.

Harry came through and immedietly notice that there was about 20 people sitting around. Harry looked at Dumbledore for an explanation.

"The Order of the Phoenix" was all he said.

Harry looked at the faces of each one, and then he came across someone he recognized. Harry pulled out his wand and stunned the man before anyone could react.

"What was the meaning of that!"

"He was at the graveyard today, he is a Death Eater!" He went over and rolled up his sleeve. Sure enough the mark was there.

"Anyways, I have some information for you." Harry began.

"Very well my boy." Dumbledore said with twinkling eyes. "Kingsley, do me a favor and lock him up" he said motioning to the stunned Death Eater

"Some of it, actually most of it, is unpleasant. To say it bluntly, Voldemort was reborn today. He used a dark ritual." He waited for the dramatic effect. "There was quite a few Death Eaters that responded to the call. However he let slip that approximately half the ministry is sympathetic to his cause. I just came from a meeting with Amelia about that. She is going to handle it, and I showed her and 2 aurors the complete memory of what happened in the graveyard."

Dumbledore spoke up. "Severus did tell me that he felt his master's call today, but he didn't go right away... The order of the Phoenix was the organization that I started during the first wizarding war to combat Voldemort. I took the initiative to call them all together tonight. The evidence has been slowly building that Voldemort would be returning, and now he finally has. Can you tell us about who turned the cup into a portkey and a little more about what happened in the graveyard?"

Harry nodded his head. He saw both the Weasley parent's there, along with Bill and Charlie. "Percy Weasley turned the cup into the portkey, and imperiused Viktor Krum. Voldemort is going to reward him with the mark soon." Naturally this caused an uproar in the room. Bill and Charlie looked unsurprised that their brother was dark though.

Harry did a brief summary of the graveyard. He was not going to mention how he killed the dark lord again, or his nundu form. "Upon arriving we saw three figures standing over a cauldron. One was Barty Crouch Jr. Another was Lucius Malfoy. The third was later identified as Delores Umbridge. She was the one who performed the ritual, and she was given the Dark Mark that night and inducted in to his inner circle." Dumbledore's face paled at the implications. Harry then described how he saved Cedric.

Then about his duel, he toned it down a lot. "We dueled briefly, I was severely outclassed, so I grabbed Cedric and ran for the cup." Was all he said. He made a facial expression towards Dumbledore that indicated he wanted to speak with him in private. Dumbledore gave the briefest of nods.

"This meeting is adjourned; you all got your missions." Dumbledore closed.

"Very well, my boy. I'm sure you got something else to add, since you were in that graveyard for over an hour."

"Of course. Voldemort and I dueled for nearly 20 minutes. I was outclassed, but He wasn't totally used to his new body yet either. And I was using my old wand, so we were both handicapped. Eventually his killing curse connected with my disarming curse, and our wands connected with each other, some sort of brother wand effect."

"Ah yes, priori incantem. Continue."

"Well we exerted our wills over the spells in the middle, but I broke the connection off before they could reach me. I pulled out my second wand and shot "diffinda bombarda" at him, as a distraction. I then teleported behind him and hit him with an ancient killing curse."

Dumbledore looked intrigued "And?"

"Tell me sir, what do you know of Horcruxes?"

If Dumbledore was expecting anything, it was not Harry knowing about that. "How…?"

"You know I am a horcrux right?" was all Harry said.

"Well… I had my suspicions but I was unable to confirm…"

"Well naturally Voldemort survived the curse, but I killed his body. His spirit form came out and tried to latch onto me. It started pulling at his piece of soul that was inside of me. He almost possessed me too, but my inner animal appeared at that moment. I forcefully turned into my animagus form and ejected the dark lord. However he took my part of his soul with him, so I am no longer a Horcrux. I then proceeded to kill at least 6 death eaters, including Lucius Malfoy and possibly Crouch. The Death Eaters scattered, I saw one of them grab the dark lords body, and I saw His spirit vanish too."

Dumbledore seemed deep in thought for a few seconds. "So if his soul is no longer in you, that means you should no longer be able to speak parseltongue?"

"You would have been correct. However I have a snake animagus form, and the inner animal was retained within me, so I can still speak it."

"So you killed 6 Death Eaters in your form, impressive." Harry didn't bother to correct him that it was not his snake form that did it.

"You know this means that Voldemort has multiple horcruxes, and he is still alive after 2 have been destroyed?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore nodded. "I have been researching His cause for his apparent immortality since the first war."

"Good, I suggest you continue to do that. I talked with Amelia Bones, and she is going to fight the political battle as well as clean up her auror force. It is going to be hard, since Fudge was in Lucius pocket, and Umbridge is essentially the person in charge now. However it is still going to be a long road ahead of her. Their dark influence has not spread everywhere yet, so I suspect there is going to be a huge power struggle."

"I agree. I have sent many of my members of the Order to gain allies, or become spies. Severus went to meet with Voldemort, I only hope he comes back in one piece. We had to come up with a convincing plan so he wouldn't be killed on the spot. Reports show that Karkaroff fled the country at the first sign of his mark burning. He is responsible for ratting out some of the death eaters, but I suspect you already know that." He said with a full twinkle.

Harry did not even make the slightest sign of acknowledgement.

"Fudge was here earlier today, he seemed delusional to anything having to do with Voldemort returning. He refused to see reason and left. He did leave you your Triwizard earnings though. He also left Cedric's in the hospital wing. A joint Hogwarts victory, how lovely." He said with a smile.

Harry picked up the bag, and immedietly went to call forth Daphne and friends for a meeting.

Later that night, inside the Riddle Manor in Little Hangleton. The Death Eaters were congregating around a hot tub sized cauldron. An armless Barty Crouch was sitting on the ground, still alive. Delores was standing next to the cauldron. The newly created but lifeless body of Voldemort was next to it. The spirit of Voldemort was hovering nearby, giving instructions for the new ritual.

Umbridge was incanting the ritual once again.

"Life of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master." Barty Crouch stood up, and happily accepted his fate. He threw himself into the cauldron where he started to be boiled alive. "You will serve your master even in death."

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe!" She nicked the body of the Dark Lord and withdrew some of the blood. The blood should work since it has Harry's previous forcibly taken blood in it. She poured the blood in, and then threw the whole body in.

"Spirit of the Master, rejoin with what is rightfully yours!" The spirit of Voldemort flew into the cauldron. Crouch's screams could still be heard.

There was a blinding flash and steam started pouring at once again. And again, a snakelike figure could be seen in the mist. "Robe me!"

"As you can see, death is only a minor setback. My plans have to continue." He took out his wand and transfigured his face to look like Lucius for effect. "Lucius may be dead, but his influence need not die with him."

He looked around at his servants. "Ah Severus, you did decide to show up. Tell me why I shouldn't kill you where you stand?"


	16. Sequel Preview

PREVIEW FOR SEQUEL

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DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter was created by JKR, I do not own the rights to any characters, nor do I pretend to.

Warnings: There may be some references to biblical events, various video games, secret enclaves of hidden societies that never existed, and boobs.

Rated M for violence, gore, and sexual content. And language. I won't be holding anything back, I want blood, gore, and intestines in my teeth! And who doesn't like smut? Especially when it involves the lovely Miss Daphne?

Harry Potter and the Revolution. –Sequel to Harry Potter and the Unexpected Changes.

Summary: There are many forces at work in the world; the most obvious ones are not always the most dangerous ones. Is there a greater Evil than the Dark Lord at play here? Who are our allies, and who are our enemies? Not everything is as it seems as many hidden factions make their move to gain a foothold over the magical world.

Staring: powerful!i-found-obscure-ancient-magic!Harry

Also staring: powerful!i-studied-with-Harry!I-managed-to-not-call-her-"Ice-Queen"!hot!Daphne

Guest appearances from the lovely miss eccentric!-I'm-not-a-seer-(really!)!Luna

And Viktor-i-actually-got-a-decent-part-in-a-fanfiction-Krum

Also Antagonist!Fuck-You-Potter!!Voldemort

DoublePlotArcMysteryVillain!OC

Seconds; senile!dumbledore bashed!ron various!deatheaters dead!umbridge I-wasn't-sorted-into-ravenclaw-for-a-reason!Hermione. Bellatrix-must-pay!Neville I-will-not-be-written-in-this-story!ginny maybeiwontforgetabouther!tracy

Plot mechanics borrowed from canon: Hallows. Horcruxes. No prophecy/DOM incident. There is no DA per se, just a continuation of the small group from the first story.

(some) pairings. Main- HP/DG. Minor- HG/VK SB/AS RL/NT (others TBD) I hate writing Malfoy and Ginny, so maybe I'll pair them together and forget about them?

Final Note: I ramped the rating up to M. Harry and Daphne are now 15, so I feel they are old enough to finally have screen time 'messing around'. Honestly how can anyone write about DG and not have her hot? There are some crude attempts at humor, I leave it up to you to decide if it's worth a few chuckles or a smile.

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"Vell I am not good ov a teacher. My mutter however is teacher at Venezia Academy ov Mages. One ov first lesson she teach me is human nature ov magic. Here in Britain you have problems wiv Dark Lords. In Italy vey have opposite."

"Light Lords?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"No Hermyknee. Light magic is not opposite ov dark magic. Vere is magic maybe even more obscure and dangerous than ze dark magic. " Viktor replied. For the first time Hermione was at a loss of words.

"Holy magic."


End file.
